Sword Art Online: Hollow Effigy Vol 1
by Nahnashi
Summary: Several years after the infamous "SAO Incident" a copycat killer, aiming to "finish what Kayaba started," resurrects the death game in the form of "Sword Art: Legacy." Among the victims is fifteen-year-old Nanashi who, until now, has avoided VR games altogether. Having no prior experience with virtual reality, can he overcome his fear in order to survive?
1. Chapter 1

Chapter 1

I always felt right at home in this particular game store. Sure, it made a point of stocking the latest and greatest in gaming technology, as well as titles from the most relevant publishers by today's standards—they wouldn't be able to stay in business otherwise. But the thing that made this store so special wasn't the modern gaming consoles or cutting-edge, triple-A games they sold. This store had a special stash, a secret treasure trove for people like me. In the way back of the shop there was a bin full of games. Old games. Some so old that there weren't any newer consoles with the backwards compatibility necessary to play them. You had to have the original consoles that the games were made for, and I had most of them. My goal was to collect them all. To that end, I always came here right after school when I'd managed to save up a bit of money and spent it on a classic game or, if I had enough, an ancient gaming console. Today, though, that wasn't the case.

"Well, look who it is!" a store clerk said as he approached me. "It's been a while. Good to see you again!"

"Likewise." I bowed courteously.

"Here for another retro game or console? I've already got a few recommendations set aside."

"Not this time, actually…"

"Oh? In that case, what can I help you with?"

I hesitated for a moment. I almost didn't want to say it. It wasn't too late to change my mind and buy something old—something that I knew was safe. After all, with the amount of money I'd saved up, I could probably buy _two_ consoles. I knew exactly which games I wanted, too. I'd get the one where a giant gorilla threw barrels at you from the top of a construction site as well as the first installment of a series that had you playing as a kid in a green shirt and pointed hat who's destined to save the kingdom.

"Well…today I was hoping to buy a FullDive console."

"…Really?"

I didn't blame him for being surprised. After all, I'd always been pretty vocal about my refusal to play VR games, and I'd been coming here for at least a couple of years now. This particular person had been working here all that time, so he knew better than most how I felt about virtual reality.

"Well," the clerk said. "Did you already have a console in mind?"

"No—I figured I'd leave that up to you."

"In that case, it's going to depend on what sort of game you want to play."

"I was thinking something in the fantasy genre."

"Yeah, that sounds about right for you. I guess Gun Gale Online is out, then. That game's a bit dated, anyway. The devs don't keep on top of adding new content like ALO does."

"ALO?"

"ALfheim Online. You get to play as one of nine fairy races and fly around worlds inspired by Norse mythology."

"I'm not too sure about being a fairy, but flying sounds pretty cool…"

Whenever it was done correctly, flying always made for an addicting game mechanic. I could only think of a handful of games that actually nailed flight mechanics, but in a FullDive VR experience, even the most lazily-developed flight system was probably mind-blowing.

"It's a good title with a solid playerbase," the store clerk said. "But it's also a little old. If you're looking to get into a VRMMO, you actually chose a pretty good time."

"Why's that?"

"You mean you haven't heard? I thought even you would know about _that_." The clerk pointed at a TV monitor hanging from the ceiling. At that moment, a promotional video was playing for the latest title in the VRMMORPG genre.

My heartbeat quickened and I felt a cold sweat forming on my back. "Are you serious!? That's the _last_ game I'd ever want to play!"

Even though the NerveGear, the world's first FullDive console, already had a few basic games when it released, the concept of FullDiving into a virtual world didn't gain any real popularity until the announcement of the very first VRMMORPG: Sword Art Online. Just thinking about that title sent a shiver down my spine. At the time, all I wanted was my very own NerveGear so that I could dive into the world of SAO, too. But I was only ten back then—three years too young to use a NerveGear. The rig had a safety feature that automatically prevented anyone under the age of thirteen from using it. The disappointment I felt that day couldn't be compared to anything else, but it didn't last long. Just a few hours after the servers went live, hype and excitement turned to shock and despair. Akihiko Kayaba, the genius behind the NerveGear and Sword Art Online, had disabled the option that allowed players to log out of the game. Worse, whenever someone tried to pull the NerveGear off of someone's head to forcefully log them out, the rig discharged a high-powered microwave pulse that fried the user's brain, killing them instantly. Kayaba informed the media that the captive players would not be released until they cleared the game by beating the final boss on the one hundredth floor of Aincrad—the floating castle that served as the main setting for SAO. In the outside world, no one could do anything to save them. Two years passed before the captive players were finally able to log out, and by that point the "death game" had already claimed almost four thousand lives.

As the victims of what came to be known as the "SAO Incident" were rushed to hospitals across Japan, I felt relieved. That was the first time I'd ever been grateful to be young. After the news reported what had happened, it would be about a year before I touched another video game—regular ones, even. The kind that you played with a controller. I was afraid I might get zapped into the game world, just like what happened in that old American film where the owner of an arcade gets transported inside one of his machines. When I finally started gaming again, I made a point of only playing old stuff. Games that had already been around for years—decades, even—without hurting anyone.

I couldn't imagine the thought process that would lead someone to think it was a good idea to make a sequel to Sword Art Online. Nonetheless, the promotional video for Sword Art: Legacy played on the monitor as boldly and carefree as it would for any new title.

"Are you still afraid of something like _that_ happening?" The store clerk crossed his arms and shook his head. "That was, like, what…six, seven years ago?"

"Five," I corrected him. I imagined the incident was still quite fresh in the minds of its survivors.

"Exactly! Practically forever ago, y'know?"

"You call five years 'forever'?"

"Well, in the gaming industry it might as well be. Look, man. The SAO Incident is over, and nothing like it has happened since. Well…there was that one thing that happened in GGO, but it turned out to be a hoax."

"Even so…" I furrowed my brow. "Why make a sequel to _that_ game of all things? Am I really the only one who finds it suspicious?"

"You might be. This is actually the third game in the Sword Art franchise, not the second."

"Wait—it is?"

"Yep. Just a couple years back they released a prequel called 'Sword Art: Origin.'"

"As if anyone was curious about the origins of _that_ game…"

"You'd be surprised. It sold pretty well. And nothing happened."

"…Nothing?"

"Nothing at all."

"Hrmm…"

I crossed my arms and creased my brow. For the most part, I still didn't want to get involved with VR games at all. But at the same time…no true gamer could resist the unparalleled immersion of FullDive forever. For that reason, and because I wanted to be rid of this fear, I had come here to buy my first VR console and game. If I avoided Sword Art: Legacy just because it was related to that game, then I couldn't really say that I wasn't afraid.

"Alright," I said. "I'll get that one."

"I knew you would. It's practically destiny, you see."

"Destiny…?"

"Exactly. Because we've only got one copy left! I guess you're pretty lucky, huh?"

"It sold out that quickly!? Didn't it just come out today?"

"Yep. Like I said, Origin sold really well. It's only natural that people want Legacy, too."

"I guess that makes sense… So all I have to do now is decide on a VR rig."

"Actually, no." The clerk shook his head. "Since you want Legacy, that makes your choice of console pretty easy, because it only works with one."

"Oh?"

"Yep—with most VR games you could get by with just an AmuSphere, but, after Origin, the Sword Art franchise was picked up by a new developer, and they made the game require _their_ VR console. Apparently, Sword Art: Legacy is 'revolutionary' and all that, and requires the most cutting-edge technology."

"Ooh," I mused, raising my eyebrows. "That sounds promising. However…" I felt a disturbance in my wallet. "How much does this 'cutting-edge' VR console cost?"

The clerk inhaled, hissing through his teeth. "The ExcelRig is gonna set you back this much…" He held up a box containing the ExcelRig and pointed at the price tag.

"Youch…" There were an awful lot of digits next to that Yen symbol. Big ones, too. "I'm not gonna have anything left, but…what the heck. If it's as good as it's supposed to be, it should keep me busy for a while. Right?"

"Right! Come on over to the register and I'll get you set up with the game."

I flinched with each chirp of the register as the cost of the new game, as well as the state-of-the-art ExcelRig, blinked onto the screen in front of me. I hesitated for a moment as I handed the bills over to the sales clerk, but once the console and game were in my hands, I couldn't help but feel excited.

I clutched the ExcelRig box in my arms as though cradling a child the whole train ride, watching the other passengers closely. Of course, the businessman, the couple at the far end of the car, and the mother and her small child didn't pay me any mind. But this thing was expensive, and I'd be damned if I was going to let someone take it from me.

When I got off at my stop, I ran all the way back to my house. I probably looked pretty stupid, but I didn't care. I flung the front door open, kicked my shoes off, and hopped up the stairs two steps at a time. Once I was in my room, I wasted no time getting the box open and plugging the ExcelRig into my PC. Apparently, it needed some sort of software update, so I started reading the instructions while that went through download and installation. The manual told me to sit or lay down in a comfortable position, place the rig on my my head, and issue the startup command, so as soon as the software update was finished installing I did just that.

"Link start!" I shouted, and the ExcelRig hummed and whirred to life. The startup sequence was actually pretty scary. There was a white flash, followed by streams of colored light racing toward me, accompanied by a loud, high-pitched noise. Then I was presented with a menu screen. Normally, in non-VR titles, the main menu was just a static image on your monitor. It might feature a painting of a landscape and have a title theme playing, and there would be a stack of options in the center of the screen. In VR, though, I was _there_. I stood at the center of a dark, gloomy field. A breeze rolled over the grass like a wave, and it sent a chill through my body as it passed. I heard a soft, ominous melody playing from somewhere—it seemed to be coming from every direction. An options menu hovered in front of me underneath the game's title: "Sword Art: Legacy."

My heartbeat quickened, as did my breathing, and my hands started to shake—but I wasn't scared. Not at all. I was excited. More so than I thought I would be. I had heard that FullDive games were amazing, but to be blown away like this by a simple title screen…

I took a deep breath and reached out to touch the menu option reading "create character." Then, I was transported to an area where I looked across an empty space at the game's default avatar. I messed with the options for about forty minutes—I was the type who took forever on character creation—and made an avatar that looked like the hero of a western-style fantasy anime, with heroic blonde hair and blue eyes. When I was done, I entered a name and pressed "finalize."

There was another flash of light and the game's opening cutscene began. At this point I began to regret all the years I had been denying myself the experience of VR games. This cutscene wasn't like those of other games during which you leaned back in your chair and enjoyed the show. I stood again in the same gray-skied field from the title screen and a cold breeze howled quietly as it crept toward me over the grass. I heard an old man's voice start to narrate, probably offering some background on the game's setting and plot, but I was far too captivated by the sights, the sounds, the smells, the sensations, as I was whisked around the game world, hovering above massive forests, marshes, plains, and mountains. When the surreal, high-speed tour had ended, I was thousands of feet in the air above what looked like a huge mountain that had its top two thirds chopped off and its base hollowed out. The BGM intensified considerably before ending with a loud _bang_ on a drum as the words "Sword Art: Legacy" slowly materialized before me. Then, everything faded to black.

When I opened my eyes again I was standing at the center of a massive campsite with hundreds of tents, ranging in size from small to huge filling the clearing. A wooden castle stood above the tents. It was huge—big enough to be seen from anywhere within the campsite, or even from a few kilometers away. There were players wandering from tent to tent and talking with the NPCs, probably buying items or looking for quests. I looked around the campsite, a bit overwhelmed, not sure where to start. I began to wander through the streets of the massive camp, and as I did I realized that many of the large tents, some of them the size of buildings, were actually hastily crafted wooden structures that had been covered with massive sheets of canvas rather than being finished outright with walls.

As I wandered aimlessly I felt a tap on the back of my shoulder. "A little lost, eh, newbie?"

"Huh?" I turned around and wound up being poked in the cheek by the finger that had tapped my shoulder. But my annoyance at the childish trick turned to awe as I stared up into the face of a tall avatar with porcelain skin and long locks of silky, black hair, which flowed from the hood of her cloak and over her shoulders, with eyes to match. She was quite beautiful. I figured the avatar must've taken well over an hour—maybe two—to craft. Though the three whiskers painted on each cheek didn't really suit her elegant face and frame.

"W-well…yeah, I guess I'm a bit lost," I said, rubbing the back of my head.

"I can fix that. Name's Nezumi. Good to meetcha."

"Likewise," I said, bowing.

"No need to be so formal, kiddo. It's a game, y'know?"

"Guess you're right," I said, laughing awkwardly and rubbing the back of my head again.

"So what's yer name, anyway?" Nezumi asked.

I had only noticed just then that looking at Nezumi prompted the system to display a green cursor and HP bar, but no name. I had thought she was just going through the standard real-world greeting for the sake of formality, but, evidently, she couldn't actually see my name like players could in most standard MMOs.

"It's…Nanashi."

"Nya-ha!" she chortled. "Couldn't be bothered ta come up with a name, so ya put down 'no-name,' eh?"

"Y…yeah. I thought I could play for a while to get the hang of things, then make a new character later once I'd come up with a name."

She laughed and made a mocking gesture of pretending to wipe a tear from her eye. "Yeah, I guess that strategy isn't all that out o' the ordinary. Anyway, enough about that. Ya wanna know what ta do first, right?"

"Y-yeah, I guess that would help…" I could tell by the sly look in the tall girl's eyes and the smirk on her lips that something was up. She wanted something in return for the help or she was about to pull some kind of prank. Either way this wasn't going to be a favor, so I kept my guard up. "Why bother helping me, though?" I asked. "Don't you have your own business to attend to?"

"Smart boy," she said, winking slyly. "But ya see, kiddo, this _is_ my business. It's called building a clientele."

"Clientele…?"

"That's right. See, I give ya a bit of info on the house and, in exchange, you come to me any time ya wanna know about the quests with the highest EXP yields, best mob spawnin' sites, or where ta get the best weapons, which, naturally, I'll charge ya for. It's an investment. Ya dig?"

"I see… If you say so."  
"I say so. Now what say ya follow me an' I show ya how ta get started around here, eh?"

"Alright. Lead the way."

I fell in behind the tall avatar and followed, my head on a swivel as I looked around the campsite. "This here camp is called Tent City. Y'know, because it's a campsite full of tents but big like a city."

"Wow," I groaned. "That must've taken the devs forever to come up with."

"Often times the easiest solution is the best one. Why bother comin' up with a complicated name if a simple one that's easy ta say will do the trick? Anyway, far as I can tell, even as we clear new areas, players'll be comin' back ta Tent City regularly for story updates 'n' gear maintenance. I'm not expectin' ta see a whole lotta other towns as we progress through the game."

"Yeah, in that opening cinematic it didn't look like there were a ton of areas where you'd expect to see civilization."

"Bingo."

We stopped in front of a wooden bulletin board at the center of town that stood nearly five times as tall as my avatar. "This is the Noticeboard," Nezumi said, resting her hands on her hips. "Ya come here ta pick up quests. Mostly just repeatable radiant ones, though. We'll get ta story-related quests a bit later."

"Jeez, it's massive… How am I supposed to see the quests at the top?"

"Ha!" the high-pitched, feminine but nasally voice cackled. "It's a game, kiddo. Try ta keep that much in mind." With that said, Nezumi reached toward the Noticeboard and tapped the empty space just in front of it. A small white rectangle appeared before her and she began tapping the boxes within the window, which blinked orange on contact, to navigate through its contents. "Just do what I did and you can see all the quests offered on the Noticeboard by category. Handy, right?"

I did as she said and reached out, tapping the empty air and calling up the Noticeboard's quest interface. I flipped through the categories and scrolled through the quests, most of which were flagged as unavailable because I hadn't met the level requirement or progressed far enough in the game.

"I guess that makes more sense than having to examine each flyer individually… I forgot this was a game, for a second. It's so realistic…"

"Nyahah, first time playin' in FullDive, eh, kiddo?"

"Y-yeah… I guess it's pretty obvious, huh?"

"Yep. Word to the wise, kiddo. I'd at least try ta hide it a little better. Experienced players'll smell the noob on ya and try ta take advantage of it."

"Yeah, you're right. I'll try to keep it under wraps."

"And I'll tell ya what—I won't even charge ya for that tip!"

"Ah…thanks…"

After that, Nezumi took me on a tour around the outpost, showing me the spots where I could buy and repair gear, restock on supplies like potions and antidotes, and where to find NPCs who offered personal quests that couldn't be found on the Noticeboard. These quests didn't yield as much Col—the ingame currency—or EXP, but they had a tendency to offer special rewards like weapons or armor with extra effects.

"And this," she said, stopping before the huge wooden castle on the northernmost edge of the outpost, "is Fort Reclamation."

"Reclamation?"

"Yep. As far as what that's supposed ta mean…" It seemed as though she'd read the question on my mind. "No one seems ta know just yet. I guess we'll find out later in the story. But I can give ya a little background, at least."

"Are you gonna charge me?"

"Nah, the info's useless. Flavor text, y'know? Not worth chargin' for."

"Alright, let's hear it."

"The story NPCs'll tell ya that they're explorers. They've come here to what's called 'the Hollow'—that's the worldspace—to map it 'n' analyze the magical anomaly that caused it ta have such diverse terrain. Y'know, 'for science' 'n' stuff. However, word is that some folk have overheard NPCs say they're lookin' for somethin'."

"What could that be?"

She shrugged and offered a careless smirk. "Who knows?"

"Well…" I replied, scratching my cheek and staring up at the castle to avoid making eye contact. "You were right. That information was useless."

. . .

After registering each other as friends, Nezumi the Info Broker—as she referred to herself—and I said our goodbyes and I made my way back toward the center of Tent City. I found the Noticeboard and started browsing the quests that were available to me, which wasn't a lot because my level was still at one. Most of the quests called for the player to slay a number of Dire Wolves, Frenzy Boars, or both, so it seemed safe to say that the early area didn't consist of a great deal more than that. Boars and wolves were easy enough to deal with in typical MMOs, but the quests called for a lot of them. The easiest quest on the Noticeboard required the player to kill fifty Frenzy Boars, which would take a single player at my level forever to complete. I guessed that these quests were designed to encourage players to group up and form parties. My problem, though, was that I hadn't bought Sword Art: Legacy with any friends of mine and I was pretty awkward when it came to striking up conversations in the real world—and the graphics here in Legacy were plenty realistic enough to trigger than anxiety.

I looked around the plaza at the center of town to see groups of players chatting with each other. No one seemed to notice me standing alone at the center of the crowd. In a standard MMO I could type up a message and have it display above my avatar's head in a permanent thought bubble—something like "looking for party" —and within no time someone would approach me and send a party invitation. I didn't think Legacy had a feature like that, and I figured shouting "looking for party!" over and over again in the center of town would make me look like a jackass, so that was out.

Without any other viable strategies, I picked up a few quests from the Noticeboard and headed through the main gate and into the field just outside town. The quests I'd accepted all listed "kill Frenzy Boars" as their requirements. I wouldn't get any of them done quickly, but at least I'd be making progress with more than one quest at a time.

I looked around the field and spotted a single Frenzy Boar separate from the rest of the mobs. None of the countless parties in the field had their eyes on it, so I bounded toward it and drew my sword from the scabbard on my back. The boar noticed me as it heard the hiss of my blade leaving its scabbard. I stopped in my tracks and held my breath, waiting to see what would happen. Without hesitating, the boar pawed the ground with its hoof a few times and began to charge in my direction. I stood calmly, firmly, ready to meet my foe with the confidence of a true swordsman.

"Crap!" I panicked. The boar seemed so life-like… Despite this being a game—despite my knowing that this was a game—the impossibly-realistic boar triggered my fight-or-flight response and, for a moment, it felt just like I imagined it would to have a wild animal bearing down on me in the real world. I dove to my right, flopping on my belly as the beast trampled past me. I was still lying prone on the ground by the time the boar finished its charge and turned around, and when it saw me and snorted I could have sworn it was taunting me.

"Eheheh…" I laughed nervously, watching the Frenzy Boar consider another charge as if it were playing with its food. I thought about trying to stand, but worried that might provoke another attack. So I lay there on my back, propped up on my elbows, allowing myself to be amused by what I was sure would become the epic tale of my first death in Sword Art: Legacy.

"Hah!" I heard a kiai and saw a flash of blue light, then the Frenzy Boar stood stock-still for a moment and glowed bright white before bursting into countless polygonal shards which twirled gracefully in the air before disappearing. When the boar's shape had dispersed there was a female avatar with waves of crimson red hair and blazing eyes of the same shade standing in its place. She sheathed her sword in the scabbard on her left hip and offered her hand. "Are you OK?" she asked. Her voice was firm, but also smooth as silk and had a pleasant ring to it.

"Y…yeah, thanks for the save." I took the female avatar's hand and she pulled me to a standing position with relative ease.

"It was nothing," she said, tilting her head and smiling. "I hope I'm not being too forward, but you seem to be new to FullDive games. Am I correct in assuming so?"

 _Dammit._ "Ahahah…yeah. Is it really that obvious?"

"I—I didn't mean anything by it!" Her avatar blushed and she waved her hands frantically in front of her. "Ugh, this is coming out all wrong… Let's start again. I'm Mathilde." Mathilde smiled again and bowed.

"Nice to meet you…Ma-chi-ru…da…?"

She giggled. "I know the pronunciation is kind of difficult, but I thought the name suited the fantasy setting quite well. Try again—'Mathilde.'"

"Ma _ti_ ruda…"

"That's better. You'll get the hang of it with practice, I'm sure."

"R…right…"

"And what's your name, if I may ask?"

At that moment I saw two players walking toward us. One held a spear with a simple stone tip and the other carried a large, wooden tower shield and wore a mace on his right hip. Before I could answer Mathilde's question, the tank-looking player with the shield called out to us. "Hey, Mathilde!" He waved emphatically as he shouted.

"Hey, Ashrith!" Mathilde waved back and waited for the two players to reach us.

"How's the newbie?" the spear wielder asked. "Hope he didn't cry too much." The spear wielder snickered, but there was a sort of playfulness to his tone. Mathilde didn't seem to pick up on it, though.

"Be nice, Goku. After all, you ran away from your first fight, didn't you?"

"Y-you didn't have to go and tell him that!"

Ashrith, the tank with the huge shield and equally huge avatar, laughed heartily. "What's wrong, Goku? Don't want to look bad in front of your junior?"

"Hrmph…" The one they called "Goku" crossed his arms and leaned lazily on his spear.

"Goku…?" I looked at the spear wielder and raised an eyebrow.

"Yup, Songoku. Goku for short. Wanted to be a staff user or as close to that as I could get, so I called myself 'Songoku' in honor of the legendary character from 'Journey to the West.'"

"Hmmm…" I stared hard at Songoku. Something about his care-free attitude and spiky black hair made me think he wasn't telling the full truth about the origin of his name.

"Wh…what?" Goku looked back at me nervously.

"So you're named after _that_ character, right?" I smirked.

"Huh? What do you mean? I told you who I named myself after."

"I heard you, but you can't fool me. I know the truth."

"I…I don't know what you're talking about…!" Songoku looked at me pleadingly as Mathilde and Ashrith just stared at us with blank expressions. Of course they wouldn't know any other Son Goku than Sun Wukong from the famous novel "Journey to the West." After all, who would remember the protagonist's name from an anime that first aired almost fifty years ago? I would, that's who.

"Son Goku is a well-known character from a very famous Chinese novel," Goku continued, rambling now. "Any cultured person knows that! Which is what I am! A very cultured person. As if I could be referring to any other Son Goku…"

"You're right," I said. I reached forward to slap him on the shoulder. "I'm just pullin' your leg." From one otaku to another I decided to let him off the hook. But I shot him a glance that said I'd be keeping this little fact in the back of my mind for later.

Songoku swallowed hard, then sighed and the tension left his avatar's shoulders. Then Ashrith stepped in. "In any case, I'm Ashrith. You've already met Songoku and Mathilde. So what's your name, newbie?"

"…Nanashi."

"Ha!" Goku blurted out and pointed at me. "You had the nerve to rag on me for _my_ name? You don't even have one!"

"I couldn't think of a name and didn't want to spend too much time on it because I was excited to play! I figured I could get the hang of the game, then go back and make another character later with a better name."

"There's nothing wrong with that," Mathilde interjected before Goku could say something else. "It's not all that uncommon to put down a name quickly, then go back later and put more thought into what you'd like to be called."

"That's right. Put 'er there, Nanashi!" Ashrith boomed, extending his hand in a traditional western greeting. I reached out for it and he grasped my hand tightly and shook firmly three times. "Nice to meetcha."

"Likewise."

"Nanashi?" Mathilde stepped forward, smiling. "Would you like to join our party? We could show you a thing or two about combat, if you're interested."

"I can handle tank duty on my own." Ashrith thumped his chest. "But with Goku in the back providing support that leaves Mathilde on her up out front. We could use another attacker. Fight with us for a while and we'll be even for the tips. So, what do you say?"

I thought back to Nezumi's warning about how other players might try to exploit my inexperience, but these guys didn't seem bad. So I decided to go for it. I wasn't getting anywhere on my own, anyway. "Yeah, that sounds good. Thanks for having me."

Mathilde swiped her hand downward in midair and I saw her poke at options in her menu. After a few seconds, a window appeared before me with a message reading "Mathilde invited you to the party. Accept?" and two buttons—a red one on the left with a white "X" and a blue one with a white "O" on the right. I tapped the blue button and the window disappeared. At the same time, three more HP bars appeared beneath mine. The first was Mathilde's with a small, golden crown icon. I took that to mean she was the party leader. Beneath hers was Songoku's, followed by Ashrith's.

"Alright! Let's get started!" Ashrith roared as he stomped off toward another Frenzy Boar while pumping his fist in the air. Goku followed him, howling and waving his spear around above his head.

"Come on!" Mathilde smiled at me over her shoulder as she hurried to catch up to the others, then looked ahead and quickened her pace.

"You got it!" I jogged behind her and we stopped short a few meters away from the boar Ashrith had targeted.

"OK, Nanashi," Mathilde said in a serious tone. "Ashrith will get its attention. Once he does, we'll hit it from both sides with Sword Skills…" As she spoke, Ashrith thumped his mace against his shield. Then the head of his mace glowed an orangish-yellow and he leaped forward, slamming it into the boar's skull. "Now!" Mathilde darted forward and rushed to the other side of the boar.

"Wait—! Sword…Skill…?" I hurried into place and drew my sword from my scabbard, holding it by my side perpendicular to the ground like a baseball bat. On the other side of the boar Mathilde held her sword by her left side parallel to the ground with the tip pointing behind her and the blade began to glow blue. She leaped to her right, leading with her left foot, and her sword carved a brilliant blue arc in the air as it passed through the boar, leaving behind a gash which sent red particles flying. I assumed the particles were meant to represent blood. Mathilde's attack took nearly half the Frenzy Boar's HP and left it stunned.

"Nanashi, now!"

"R…right!" With both hands I lifted my sword above my head and grunted as I swung it down on the boar. I had hoped it would do something like Mathilde's had, but the blade didn't glow at all. I felt a bit of resistance as my weapon hit the boar's flank and tore through its virtual flesh. I wanted to take a moment to marvel at the realism, but figured this was probably not a good time for that. Once my sword finished its journey downward I turned the blade over and swung upwards. The tip grazed the boar's belly and cut deeper as it travelled back up its flank. As I finished the second cut I overextended myself and lost my balance, tripping over my own foot. On my brief journey back to the ground I was beginning to grow accustomed to existing on, I looked over my shoulder at the boar's HP bar.

"!?"

I had barely scratched it. My two attacks had done just enough so that its HP bar was at less than fifty percent and had turned yellow now, but that was about all I had accomplished. "Why…?" I wailed as I hit the ground. Why had Mathilde's single attack done so much more than my two? Was the difference in our levels that great?

"I got it," said Goku from behind Ashrith. Ashrith stepped aside and the tip of Songoku's spear glowed brightly, the same way Mathilde's sword had, and he jabbed the boar twice—swiftly, but with great force. The Frenzy Boar's aggro shifted to him, but before it could close in on Goku, Ashrith stepped back into place and held the boar back with his shield. The exchange had given Mathilde enough time to recover and she hit the monster again in the same way as before. Its HP bar shrank and disappeared, then the boar burst into polygonal shards.

"Oooh." I clapped from my sitting position in the dirt, applauding their teamwork and precision.

"Nanashi," Mathilde looked down at me with her hands on her hips. "You don't know how to use Sword Skills, do you?"

"What are Sword Skills?"

She smiled as she sighed and shook her head. "Stand up. Open your menu."

I got to my feet and swiped my hand downward to call up my menu.

"The second item on the list is 'Skills.' Press it."

I did as she said and a skill tree like you'd find in most RPGs appeared. Most of the boxes were grayed out and had "?" icons, but there were two skills unlocked by default under every weapon category.

"If you click on a skill it'll give you a brief description of its effects and how to use it," Mathilde said. "Try it."

"Alright…" I tapped one of the icons and the skill's information replaced the skill tree in my window. The skill was called "Slant" and consisted of a single movement. "So this is a Sword Skill…"

"Ready to give it a try?" asked Mathilde.

"Yeah, let's do it."

"That's the spirit!" Ashrith boomed. "Sit tight, I'll pull another boar." Ashrith trotted off toward the center of the field and got just close enough to aggro a Frenzy Boar without the rest of them noticing him. Once he had its attention he jogged back toward us and spun on his heel, facing the boar with his shield at the ready. The boar slammed its tusks into Ashrith's shield and he pushed back, knocking the boar off balance. "Let 'im have it!"

Mathilde's sword glowed, and she slashed the boar's flank just as she'd done before. "Your turn, Nanashi."

"Right!" The skill info page had said to hold my blade low by my left side, so I did just that. It took less than a second for the system to recognize the Sword Skill's pre-motion, and my blade took on a blue glow with a whirring sound effect.

"That's it, Nanashi!" Mathilde cheered. "Now drive it home!"

As soon as I started to move, the system took over and my body acted on its own. I kicked off the ground with my right foot, leaping quickly to the right, and my sword traveled diagonally upward, carving into the boar's flank, as well as the remainder of its HP, and the mob burst and disappeared. When the Sword Skill had ended I landed lightly on the balls of my feet and was stuck in place for a good two and a half seconds. "Whoa…"

"Nicely done." Mathilde patted my shoulder. "Now that you can use Sword Skills, the real farming can begin!"

Mathilde, Songoku, Ashrith and I spent the next two hours farming Frenzy Boars in the field outside Tent City. Once we had gotten the hang of it, we were able to kill the boars in just two attacks—a Horizontal from Mathilde and a Slant from me. Goku only had to step in every now and then when we came across a boar with slightly higher parameters than the rest that didn't go down after the first two hits, though he still gained just as much EXP as the rest of us for being a member of our party. Apparently, the stats for mobs of the same type can fluctuate a little, and that's why some Frenzy Boars were defeated with two Sword Skills while others weren't. In all the time we'd spent farming mobs, my proficiency in the One-handed sword skill category had only gone up by about forty levels out of one thousand and my player level had gone from one to three.

"Jeez…" I said, looking at my status screen. "The leveling in this game is pretty slow. Low-level mobs or not, two hours of farming would have brought me to at least level ten in most standard MMOs.

"Yeah, VRMMOs are hardcore like that," said Goku. "Players will dedicate more of their time to a VRMMO for the immersion alone, so developers have no problem cranking up the time investments necessary to clear the games. They know the players aren't going anywhere."

"Makes sense," I said. "It's pretty addicting."

"Well," Mathilde sighed lightly. "I think I've done enough for now. I'm going to log off and take a break, have something to eat, and all that." She waved her hand in the air and opened her menu. "See you guys later."

We all waved, but after a few moments of poking around in her menu Mathilde was still standing in front of us. "Huh…that's strange…" she said. "The logout button is all grayed out."

"…What…?" I felt a chill go down my spine and my heart began to race, and a part of me was once again impressed by Legacy's realism and the ExcelRig's ability to reproduce such sensations. "Is it like that for everyone?" I opened my menu and scrolled down to the logout button. Sure enough, it was grayed out and pushing it had no effect.

"Yeah, mine's not working, either," said Goku.

"Same here," said Ashrith.

A sense of dread flooded my body, but I took deep breaths and tried to calm myself. Something like _that_ wasn't possible. There were all sorts of rules and regulations in place on FullDive consoles. They couldn't cause their users harm…

"Oh well," Mathilde chimed. "Guess I'll just play a little longer while they sort this out. Hey, you guys remember that huge boar we saw a while back on the far north side of the field?"

Ashrith, Goku and I nodded.

"Why don't we go see about taking it down? At this rate we've all got a handle on combat. If we work together we can beat it easily. What do you say?"

"Hell yeah!" Ashrith pounded his chest and raised his shield high in the air, already heading north. "Let's take it down!"

"I hope it drops something good," said Goku, falling in behind Ashrith.

Mathilde turned to me. "You coming, Nanashi?"

"W…well…"

"Hm? What is it?"

"Aren't you worried…? You know, about not being able to log out? Doesn't this sort of remind you of…"

"Oh, you mean _that_ game, right? Don't sweat it, it's nothing to worry about. Probably just a bug, and if it gets bad enough the devs will log everyone out manually."

"Yeah… I guess you're right."

"Come with us. It'll take your mind off it until we can log out again."

"Sure, I'm right behind you."

Mathilde and I ran to catch up with Ashrith and Goku, and the four of us walked in silence for about half an hour until we reached the far north end of the field where a giant red boar with a black mohawk stood waiting for anyone dumb enough to challenge it. When I focused my gaze on the boar, the system showed its HP bar—or, rather, its two HP bars—and a nametag which read "NM: The Careless Tusk."

Mathilde signaled for us to stop about ten meters away from the Careless Tusk. "OK, what's our plan of attack?"

"I'll take it head on," Ashrith started, "because that's my duty as our tank. Once I've got its attention, you and Nanashi head to either of its flanks, same as before. Then Goku will circle around behind it and play the role of an attacker as well."

"Alright, I like it," said Mathilde. "If its aggro shifts to any of us, make sure to hit it with a Sword Skill, Ashrith. But otherwise stay on the defensive."

"Roger that. Just leave it to me!" Ashrith pounded his chest again, causing a metallic _clank_ as his gauntlet hit his chest plate. We all held our breath for a moment, looking over to see if the Careless Tusk had noticed us. We sighed in relief as the thing continued to pace idly in its spot.

"Alright, everyone ready?" Mathilde's expression turned serious as she looked at the three of us. We all nodded. "Good." She drew her sword and pointed it at the Careless Tusk. "Let's do this!"

"Raaaaagh!" Ashrith roared as he sprinted toward the Careless Tusk at full speed. Mathilde, Goku and I followed about a meter behind him to make sure that he was the first to gain its aggro. Once it was clear the monster had targeted Ashrith, the three of us split off, surrounding it.

As soon as we were in position, Mathilde and I attacked the boar simultaneously, she with Horizontal and I with Slant. Less than a second after our skill animations had finished, Goku hit the creature's rear end with a two-part Sword Skill of his own. The Careless Tusk roared furiously and began turning to its left, either to target me or turn around completely and attack Goku, but just as it began to turn, Ashrith rested his mace on his left shoulder and, as soon as it began to glow, swung twice, each blow hitting the Careless Tusk's right shoulder with a satisfying _thud_. The Careless Tusk roared again and shifted its attention back to Ashrith, rearing up on its hind legs and slamming its tusks into Ashrith's shield. The impact caused Ashrith to slide backward, but he kept his footing.

"Rrgh," Ashrith grunted as he held the creature back. In the top left corner of my vision I saw the green of Ashrith's HP bar shrink considerably.

"You OK!?" I called out to him.

"Yeah, don't sweat it! This is nothing!"

"Stay focused!" Mathilde called, snapping our attention back to the battle. The Careless Tusk used a two-part skill, slamming its tusks into Ashrith's shield twice, the second hit breaking Ashrith's guard and leaving him vulnerable. "Hit it now!" Mathilde called to Goku and I. We activated our Sword Skills as quickly as we could and our attacks stunned it long enough for Ashrith to regain his stance.

"Thanks for that!" he called.

By this point Ashrith's HP was already in the yellow. "Maybe we should fall back," I suggested. "I'm not sure our tank can take much more of this."

"No way!" cried Ashrith. "I'll be right as rain after I down a few pots. Plus, even if I die, it's just a game so we've got no excuse not to give it our all!" Ashrith popped the cork off a green HP potion with his teeth, spat it out, and started to chug while the Careless Tusk was between actions. His logic was sound, but my mind wandered to our grayed out logout buttons and I felt that same chill again. But the Careless Tusk reared up on its hind legs, snapping me out of my contemplation.

"It looks like an AoE attack!" Mathilde warned as she lowered her stance. "Brace yourselves!" The Careless Tusk slammed its hooves into the ground, the force creating a shockwave that sent Goku, Mathilde and I flying, leaving Ashrith the only one still standing. I tried to stand up, but it was no use.

"I'm stuck…my body won't move!"

"It's a stun effect." Mathilde said. Just then I noticed three little stars beside my HP bar—the universal sign for a stun effect in RPGs. "Try to stay calm, it'll wear off in a few seconds."

"Right, but…" I looked to Ashrith who struggled to keep the monster's attention on him, his HP dropping by the second.

"Don't worry, I've got you guys covered," he growled as he slid back further and further across the grass.

"Sit tight, Ashrith! We're coming!" Goku shouted. "You rock, dude!"

As soon as the stun effect wore off the three of us bolted to our feet and back into position around the Careless Tusk, hitting it with Sword Skills all at once. The fight went on like this for about twenty minutes before the first of the Careless Tusk's two HP bars was nearly drained. The four of us cheered after another successful team attack brought its HP to its second bar, which turned yellow as it marked the halfway point.

"Yeah!" Ashrith roared. "Home stretch!"

"If we keep at it like this, we'll be done in no time!" Goku hooted from behind the monster.

But the Careless Tusk cut our celebration short.

It roared louder than ever before, causing the ground to tremble and the air to vibrate. It's eyes glowed red.

"Ashrith! Watch out!" But Mathilde's warning came too late. The Careless Tusk stood up on its hind legs once again and slammed back down on the ground, then began to charge. Ashrith tried to hold his ground, keeping his shield in front of him. The soles of his boots screeched as the Careless Tusk pushed him several meters back. At the end of its charge the Careless Tusk tossed its head back, breaking Ashrith's guard and knocking him to the ground.

"Ah—hngh!" Ashrith called out in shock when he was sent airborne and uttered a choked grunt when he hit the ground with a _thud._

"Ashrith!" Mathilde pulled her sword back parallel to the ground and held it until the blade began to glow, then, faster than I could blink, her body zipped forward, closing the distance between her and the Careless Tusk and leaving behind a faint trail of blue light. The tip of her blade pierced the Careless Tusk's haunch, but, even if she had generated enough hate to shift the monster's aggro to her, its attack animation hadn't finished yet.

The Careless Tusk reared up again and slammed its front hooves into Ashrith's armored chest. There was a metallic crunching sound as the attack pierced Ashrith's chest plate and the steadfast tank screamed. I couldn't tell if it was from shock, pain, or both. His cry was cut off as the green of his HP bar shrank, turning yellow and then red before disappearing entirely, and his avatar glowed brightly for a brief moment before shattering into a thousand pieces. In the top left corner of my vision, Ashrith's HP bar turned black and displayed the word "DEAD."

"D…dammit…!" Mathilde choked. Even though we all knew it was a game, the image was undeniably shocking. Mathilde's shoulders fell and she stood frozen in place.

"It's alright," called Goku, running toward the Careless Tusk. "We'll see Ashrith back in town. For now, let's avenge him!"

"R-right!" Mathilde's voice trembled a bit, but she shook her head and her steely, commanding tone was back. "Come on, Nanashi! Let's kill this thing!"

"I'm right behind you!" I hurried over to join them.

"Goku, fall back! Standby for support and draw aggro if needed."

"Roger!" Songoku hopped backward, standing at the ready with his spear.

"Nanashi, we'll take turns using Sword Skills. Make sure to dodge when it attacks. You can't afford to get hit, even if you're blocking."

"R…right…!" Admittedly, a part of me wanted to cut my losses and run. What was the point? How were we supposed to beat this thing without a tank?

The Careless Tusk pawed the ground, kicking back dirt as it eyed Mathilde malevolently with its glowing red eyes. The girl stood strong and waited patiently for the beast to attack. It swung twice with its tusks and she sidestepped each swipe carefully. Then she slung her blade over her right shoulder and swung diagonally downward. The cut left a vicious red arc in the air, and the Careless Tusk screeched and reeled back, stunned.

"Now, Nanashi!" I was already moving before Mathilde called the order, lowering my blade and cutting upward to the right with Slant.

The Careless Tusk shook off the stun effect and stood tall on its hind legs. Mathilde and I recognized this action and hopped back about two meters, just barely escaping the AoE attack's range. As soon as the animation ended, Mathilde closed the distance with the same charging Sword Skill she'd used earlier, leaving a blue trail of light in her wake.

With Mathilde stuck in her post-skill animation and me still moving back to the battle, Goku stepped in and hit the boar's haunch with a two-part Sword Skill, drawing its attention away from Mathilde.

As the Careless Tusk spun on its axis to face Goku, I used Slant and hit it square in the snout. Then, before it could attack me, Mathilde hit it again with Horizontal.

The Careless Tusk roared loud again, shaking the earth. I recognized this as the start of a skill—the same skill that had killed Ashrith just moments ago. The monster was glaring at Mathilde again with its vicious red eyes.

"Mathilde, get out of the way! It's gonna charge!" But Mathilde ignored my warning. Instead of moving, she stood there, slinging her blade over her right shoulder again and it took on a red glow—the pre-motion for the same diagonal Sword Skill she'd used just a moment ago. As soon as the Careless Tusk began to charge, Mathilde unleashed her Sword Skill. However, instead of standing still and cutting downward like before, Mathilde leaped high into the air. She somersaulted forward in midair and, as she did so, cleaved a red gash across the Careless Tusk's spine before landing softly on her feet while the boar charged uselessly away from her.

I couldn't help but stand there, my mouth agape, staring at her in awe. She was incredible. She knew just what skills to use and when to use them, kept a cool head, and she was a natural leader to boot. Then there was Songoku and Ashrith, both respectable players in their own right, with Ashrith's indomitable fighting spirit and Goku never missing a beat in picking up everyone's slack. And here I was, a newbie who only knew how to use a single Sword Skill. For a moment I wondered whether or not I was just holding them back.

As the Careless Tusk turned around to face us, Mathilde spoke. "It's HP is in the red, now. Let's finish it off. I'll go first, then Nanashi, then you, Goku. Get ready."  
"You got it." Goku answered without hesitation, but I wasn't as confident.

"Don't worry," Mathilde assured me, as if my concerns were written on my face. "You can do it."

The Careless Tusk began another charging attack. It was different from the one it had just used. It didn't roar, and its eyes didn't glow. This was likely a more simple charging attack that its AI instructed it to use when its target was a certain distance away from it. Mathilde stepped to her left and used her charging Sword Skill, flying straight past the Careless Tusk and grazing its flank as she did. "Your turn, Nanashi!" she called back to me.

I waited for the monster to reach me, holding my breath and praying that my timing wouldn't be off. As soon as it was close enough, I hit the creature's tusk with Slant, taking out a small chunk of its HP and knocking it off balance, cancelling its skill as well as my own. Once I could move again, I dropped to the ground on one knee, hoping Goku would pick up on the signal. He figured it out and wasted no time, using a Sword Skill to swing his spear in two graceful arcs over my head, hitting the Careless Tusk from behind me.

The huge red boar squealed one last time as its HP hit zero and its model glowed white before bursting unceremoniously into polygonal shards.

"Woo-hoo!" Goku hooted and jumped into the air while Mathilde calmly and coolly returned her sword to its scabbard at her hip. I sighed in relief and found myself feeling exhausted all of a sudden.

"Good job, guys. Let's head back to town and find Ashrith." Mathilde started for the south end of the field.

"Yeah, I'm beat after all that," Goku said as he caught up to her.

"Wait a sec…"

"Hm?" They both turned to face me.

"Look here…" I pointed to where the HP bars for the party were displayed in my field of vision. Their eyes shifted upward and to their left as they examined it as well. Ashrith's name was still listed with the others in the party, but instead of an HP bar there was a grayed out icon reading "disconnected."

"Huh," Mathilde mused. "He must have found a way to log out while we were busy fighting."

"Yeah…I guess so…" I muttered. But something didn't feel right. I opened my menu and scrolled down to the logout button, but it was still grayed out. Then I looked at the clock in the upper right corner of my vision which read "18:58."

"Look at that," said Goku, pointing to the spot where his clock would be. "It's already seven o'clock and they still haven't fixed this logout bug yet."

"Yeah… It's definitely strange." Mathilde furrowed her brow.

The chill from before returned again, spreading throughout my body and I found it hard to breathe, like I'd just been running for a long time. "What do we do now?" I asked. "Should we try to contact the GMs?"

"No use. That setting is grayed out, too." Goku drove the butt of his spear into the ground and leaned on the shaft.

"Let's do as we'd planned and head back to Tent City," Mathilde suggested. "Maybe there will be some sort of update on the situation there. Let's hurry."

"Yeah, that's a good—" a loud sound effect cut me off as all three of our avatars began to glow. The world around me was washed out with white, and when the glow died down I was back in Tent City, which was lit brightly by lanterns hung from posts on every structure and lining the pathways. I looked around me at a sea of confused players, searching for Mathilde and Goku. Everywhere I turned there were players wandering about, looking for their comrades, while others were still appearing in the camp. "Mathilde! Goku!?" I called out. But they were nowhere in sight.

"What's going on?" I heard a player ask their friend. "Think this has something to do with the logout button?"

"Yeah, probably. At least, it had _better_ be about that. Talk about annoying!"

After about ten minutes the teleportation effect stopped playing, suggesting that every player who was currently logged in to Sword Art: Legacy had been successfully relocated to Tent City. A few players had gotten bored while waiting and tried to leave the camp, but they'd been met with barriers preventing their exit. We were all stuck here until the end of this "event" or whatever it was.

"Is something gonna happen…?" I wondered aloud. Even though it seemed every player had been moved, another ten minutes had gone by without anything happening. The players were getting anxious, and it seemed like if this went on any longer people might start to panic. _I_ might start to panic. As I looked around at the frightened mob of players I felt an overwhelming sense of dread. I was sure someone was watching us…

"Greetings, players!" A loud, booming voice echoed throughout the encampment and shocked me out of my thoughts. The players' heads swiveled all around, looking for the source of the voice, but it seemed to come from every direction. "Welcome," the voice continued, "to Sword Art: Legacy. I want to thank you all for embarking on this grand journey with me.

"I am Daisuke Hirata, creator of Sword Art: Legacy as well as the ExcelRig. I want to tell you all a bit about Sword Art: Legacy and how it came to be. It started with a dream, you see. A dream to make the world a better place. Our world is filled to the brim with people who work hard, every day, to give back to society… But, unfortunately, that is not the case for everyone…" The malice was palpable in the disembodied voice. "There are those who would rather spend their lives indulging in their hobbies, doing nothing but consuming the work of others. My idol in the field of science once created a world whose fate he controlled in an effort to teach this particular group of people a lesson. He hoped that those who bore witness to his work would see the dangers of giving in to the sin of sloth. My idol gave his life to teach that lesson… Even so, that particular group of people continues to be a plague on society. Thus, it is my dream to continue that man's work and rid this world of those who refuse to serve a purpose. In other words, Sword Art: Legacy is a tribute to the genius of…"

Hirata paused as if to torment us as we all waited, holding our breath. My hands began to tremble and my breath caught in my throat as I prayed he wouldn't say the name that was racing through my mind.

"Akihiko Kayaba."

A few sharp gasps pierced the silence as the name reverberated throughout the encampment. "No…no way…" I choked.

"On that note," Hirata continued after another torturous pause. "By now you've all doubtless realized that the logout button in your menu has no function. This is not a bug, but a feature of my design. It has been this way since you first logged in. Additionally, it is not possible for someone to log you out manually from the real world. Should someone disconnect your ExcelRig from its power source for longer than ten seconds, or so much as attempt to remove the rig from your head, it will immediately transmit a signal called the 'Killcode' directly to your brain.

"The Killcode is a program containing an overabundance of sensory data that will overload your brain. The data consists mostly of pain simulation, similar to what you experience when you take damage in-game, though on a much greater scale, and is more than enough to cause circulatory shock and, inevitably, death."

"He's lying," I said aloud with a hiss, mostly to myself. But a number of frightened faces turned to me, so I continued. "There are strict safety regulations enforced on all FullDive consoles. It's been that way since the SAO Incident. There's no way the ExcelRig would have been released to the public if it had the capability to transmit that much sensory data all at once. What's more, FullDive consoles aren't allowed to have internal batteries, so once the power is cut there's no way it could administer a signal like that." Having reasoned through it all verbally I felt more confident in what I'd said. The shaking in my hands had stopped and I clenched my fists triumphantly.

Daisuke Hirata continued as though he had heard me. "Some of you may have reasoned that what I've said is impossible based on the regulations imposed on FullDive consoles for the safety of their users. Let me assure you, everything I've said is true.

"When the ExcelRig underwent the safety evaluations that all FullDive consoles are subject to, it would have appeared no different in functionality than any other machine of its kind, with its more 'special' features carefully hidden. It was the mandatory software update you were all prompted to download before being granted access to Sword Art: Legacy that contained the Killcode and disabled the logout feature. Additionally, this software update allowed the ExcelRig to draw more power from its energy source than is necessary for normal operations. It is able to store just enough power to administer the Killcode should its power cable be disconnected."

"Hey…" A player standing behind me pulled on my shoulder to make me face him. "He's crazy, right? You can discredit that crap, too, right?" His grip was tight and his eyes pleaded me to reassure him.

"I…I don't know…"

The truth was that he wasn't crazy. A software update containing this "Killcode" thing was easy enough to distribute. All Hirata had to account for, then, was the fact that he couldn't equip the ExcelRig with an internal battery. He didn't need one, though. The ExcelRig didn't fry the user's brain with microwave pulses like the NerveGear had five years ago. Something like the Killcode would only need a second to reach the brain. It wasn't impossible for the rig to draw more power than it needed for normal operation—in fact, most gaming consoles already did that. I remembered being amused on more than a few occasions by the block on my game consoles' power cords continuing to glow for a while after they had been unplugged from the wall. When I was younger, I was sure it was magic.

"This is bullshit!" someone blurted. "Let us out of here already!"

"There is only one way to escape from Sword Art: Legacy," Hirata said. "You must clear the game. However…it is important to note that there is no longer any way for a slain player to respawn. If your HP drops to zero your avatar will be deleted from the system. At that time, your ExcelRig will transmit the Killcode to your brain, ending your life." There was something unsettling about Hirata's tone as he spoke the last three words of that sentence. He almost sounded smug, boasting that our lives were in danger.

Then, something dawned on me.

"Oh my god…"

It felt as though my blood had frozen solid and someone had punched me in the gut. I couldn't breathe as I stood there, stock-still, and the image of Ashrith screaming in pain as his avatar shattered played back in my head. When I looked in the corner of my vision at the HP bars underneath mine, Ashrith's, which had read "disconnected" before, was gone. If what Hirata said was true, and all of these features had been activate since before the game went live, then Ashrith was…

"Th-this isn't real…" I stammered. "This can't be real. Please tell me this is just a bad dream, or a joke, or something!" I doubled over and held my head in my hands, and my eyes bulged. I started to hyperventilate. This just couldn't be happening. Nothing like this had happened in the five years I'd avoided VR games, so why? Why now? Why me?

"This is no ruse," Hirata said, again seemingly hearing our doubt. "As a result of attempted manual logout, one thousand two hundred nineteen of the ten thousand players that were allowed onto the server have been terminated. One thousand nine hundred seventy eight players have perished at the hands of monsters." I let out a choked sob as Hirata bragged of the deaths in the category under which Ashrith fell. "And six hundred twenty four players have died as a result of PvP. Though you may find all of this hard to believe, you will have your proof as time passes and you find yourselves still trapped within this world.

"And that concludes the opening ceremony of Sword Art: Legacy. Farewell, players, and good luck. Oh—and one last thing. I had nearly forgotten."

As Daisuke Hirata's voice echoed and faded away, every avatar throughout Tent City began to glow, filling the entire encampment with a blinding white light. When the glow faded, I looked around me to see that the cast of brightly-colored fantasy characters that once made up the playerbase had been replaced with ordinary people, mostly Japanese in origin. Looking at my reflection in the water of a nearby fountain, I realized that my painstakingly-crafted hero avatar, with his blonde hair and courageous smile, had been replaced by the long mess of brown hair, dark blue, almond-shaped eyes, and utterly average frame that made up my appearance in the real world. I wondered why Hirata would bother with replacing our in-game avatars with our real bodies. What was the point?

The barrier trapping the players within Tent City disappeared, but no one moved. Everyone stood still as the gravity of our situation slowly sank in until, finally, someone screamed, triggering pandemonium as players shrieked and called out the names of loved ones, begging for the nightmare to end. But as an hour of chaos passed, then two, then three, no one came to save us.

. . .


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

I stood helplessly, my feet rooted to the ground, as I watched a giant boar with glowing red eyes charge toward Songoku. "Nanashi, do something!" Goku cried as the boar got closer. But I couldn't do anything. I couldn't move. I couldn't even speak.

"Aaaagh!" Goku screamed as the red boar's tusk pierced his gut. I watched his HP drop to zero and his avatar burst into countless polygonal shards. The word "DEAD" appeared over his HP bar in the top left corner of my vision.

"Goku!" Mathilde shrieked. She roared furiously, with tears in her eyes, and ran toward the boar. As she got close she lifted her sword above her head, but before she could strike the boar leaned forward on its forelimbs and kicked. Mathilde choked as the blow hit her square in the chest and she flew back several meters. I reached out to her, my hand trembling, but my feet still wouldn't move. I could only watch as the red boar strode to where Mathilde lay on the ground.

She couldn't get up. She had probably been stunned. As the boar stood lazily on its hind legs Mathilde squeezed her eyes shut and covered her head with her hands. I saw one last tear fall from her cheek as the boar's hooves pierced her armor and her frame burst into nothing.

"Mathilde…" I felt hot tears streaming down my cheeks as I watched, still rooted to the ground. The red boar finally turned its attention to me. It pawed the ground, kicking back dirt, and snorted. I lifted my sword and stood ready but my hands were still shaking. I knew I wouldn't be able to beat it on my own. I was going to die here. My HP was going to drop to zero, and then the ExcelRig on my head in the real world would trigger as much pain as physically possible before I went into shock and my heart stopped.

The boar began to charge. It felt like an eternity passed as it stampeded toward me. It got closer, closer. I couldn't stop my hands from shaking. I couldn't turn to run. There was only a meter between the boar and I now. It roared and lowered its head to strike.

And then I rolled out of bed and hit the wooden floor with a painful _thud._

"Ow…"

I rubbed my eyes and checked the clock in the top right corner of my vision. 11:24.

"Tch…"

Was that all I'd managed? I hadn't even slept through half the day. I wondered if I could fall asleep again, but as I started to crawl back into bed I heard a knock on the wooden door frame.

"Nanashi! Rise 'n' shine, kiddo!"

"Hm…?" _Who the heck could that be?_ I wondered. I got to my feet and wrapped my blanket around my shoulders and over my head like a cloak, then sauntered to the door frame and pulled back the canvas flap that separated my room from the hallway.

"Hello…?" I poked my head through the doorway and looked to each side, but I didn't see anyone. "Hm… Guess it was nothing." I turned around and let the canvas sheet fall back into place.

"Hey!" a high-pitched and nasally voice pierced my ears and a small hand shot forward and caught the canvas door flap. "I'm right here! Are ya blind or somethin'!?" The hand pulled back the canvas sheet and a small, hooded figure stepped into the door frame. The tiny avatar stood with their hands on their hips and looked up at me with an irritated frown.

The cloaked figure was about a head shorter than me and had a slight frame. Under the hood I could just make out a pair of light brown eyes and even lighter brown hair, almost blonde, which fell in short curls beside pale cheeks with long bangs nearly covering the eyes.

"Uhm… Who are you?"

"Who am I? C'mon, I don't look _that_ different!"

"Uh… Sorry, kid. I don't recognize you."

"Kid!?" The cloaked figure pouted and folded their arms across their chest. "Who're you callin' 'kid'? You don't look that much older than me, an' I'm fourt—" The person clamped their hand over their mouth, but it was a little too late. "Forget you heard that."

"Right… Already forgot," I lied.

"At any rate… Ya seriously don't remember me?"

"Uh…" I scratched my head. "Remind me…?"

"Well, I could tell ya," the small figure chimed, smirking slyly. "But I'd have ta charge ya fer that info."

"Charge me…? Wait a minute…" I leaned a bit closer. I hadn't seen it at first in the darkness, but when I squinted I could just make out three whiskers on each of the cloaked figure's cheeks. "Nezumi!?" I reeled back in shock and let my blanket fall to the floor, then stared at the girl, my eyes bulging and jaw agape.

"Hey, don't look at me like that!" she huffed. "It's not like I'm the only one who looks different! Take you, for example. You're… You're… Hm." Nezumi's eyes darted up and down, scanning my avatar. She folded one arm across her abdomen and rested her elbow in her open hand, then propped her head up on the other hand. "You're actually kinda cute, aren'tcha?"

"…Huh?"

"Way better-lookin' than that lame, generic fantasy avatar ya made."

My outfit wasn't anything special—a moss green shirt, loose-fitting pants made of brown cloth, and plain leather boots—and I had relatively plain features, too. Blue eyes—I'm only half Japanese—long, shaggy, brown hair, and a pretty standard build. I couldn't see myself as "cute" or anything of the sort, so I assumed she was teasing me.

"Hey, that avatar took me forever to make!"

"Preachin' to the choir, kiddo."

"Right…" I remembered the beautiful avatar I'd met the day Legacy had launched and coughed, hoping it would cover up the laugh I was holding back as I looked down at the childlike girl before me.

"Well?" she said, her hands on her hips.

"Hm?"

"I just gave you a compliment. The polite thing ta do would be to return it, 'specially if it's from a cute girl. Right?" She grinned and raised an eyebrow.

"W-well…" I scratched the back of my head and felt my cheeks get hot, then looked away. "Did you come here for a reason?"

"Oh, that's right!" She pounded her fist into her open palm. "I almost forgot." Nezumi invited herself in, strutted across my room and dropped herself onto my bed, then lifted her foot and rested it on her knee. "I got a proposition for ya."

"Proposition…?"

"Yep. There's a tough quest I need ta finish, and I need someone ta watch my back."

"Pass."

"What!? But ya haven't even heard all the details!"

"I don't need to. There's no way I'm going out there." I sat on the windowsill and stared through the glass as an excuse to avoid making eye contact.

"So yer just gonna sit here and do nothin'?"

"Until we're rescued, yes. There's no point in risking our lives."

"Nanashi…" Nezumi's posture tightened and she looked down at her feet. "No one's—"

"Don't."

"…"

I knew what she was going to say. I didn't need to hear it.

"Oh well," she said, shrugging. "Guess you win."

"That easily…?"

"Yep! I won't ask ya ta help me. But…" Nezumi exaggerated the length and pitch of the last word. "Why don'tcha let me treat ya to lunch? Y'know, as an apology for bargin' in all uninvited and whatnot."

"No thanks," I said, waving dismissively. "I'll just have something here." I didn't like the look in her eye.

"Ku ku ku," she laughed villainously. "If you're fine with just eatin' the same crummy black bread day in and day out, I won't say nothin'. It's yer choice, after all…"

"What're you saying…?" As far as I knew, there weren't any options for food around Tent City other than the black bread sold by a few vendors around town. The assumption was that the menu would expand as we progressed through the game. Unlocking new areas would grant the vendors access to new types of ingredients, allowing them to prepare different foods. There was a cooking skill in the game, but that faced the same dilemma. There weren't many ingredients in the areas around Tent City, and even if there were, not many players were wasting their precious few skill slots on a skill like cooking. For those reasons, it was impossible to come across anything other than the tasteless black bread found throughout town.

"No, no, it's fine. To each their own, an' all that. I mean, I think it's a little plain, but…" Nezumi stood up and went for the door, ducked under the canvas flap, and left the room.

"W…wait…" I bolted across the room and poked my head outside in time to see Nezumi skipping downstairs. "Nezumi!?" I threw the door flap out of my way and ran to catch up with her. "Wait for me!"

Nezumi ignored me, humming merrily as I followed her to the first floor. She passed the front desk and pushed through the saloon-style double doors, leaving what passed for an inn in Tent City, then crossed the dirt path and plopped down on a shoddily-crafted wooden bench.

"Ugh," I squinted and shielded my eyes from the sunlight as I crossed the path and sat down beside her.

"You need ta get out more, kiddo," Nezumi said. "Sunlight is good for ya."

"It's not real sunlight, though. And this isn't my real body, so it's not like I can get Vitamin D from basking in the sun or anything."

"True. But shuttin' yourself up in a dark room all day ain't good fer yer soul."

"Whatever you say…"

I stayed quiet for a moment as I watched the droves of players solemnly dragging themselves along the trail, looking as though they'd lost all sense of purpose and hope.

"I can't believe we've been stuck in here for a month already… Has anyone found the boss for this area yet?"

"Nope. Even though it's just a small fragment o' the overall game, this area's massive. The Assault Team only has a handful of players, so it's takin' 'em forever just to explore it."

"Assault Team?"

"The players workin' ta clear the game. There aren't a lot, unfortunately, because so few folks are willin' put themselves in danger. At this rate…"

"Did you say something about lunch?" I snapped, hoping to steer the conversation elsewhere.

"Oh, yeah. Almost forgot."

Nezumi waved her hand in the air to call up her menu and poked around a bit. Then, after a moment, two rolls of black bread materialized in her hand. She handed one of them to me with a mischievous smirk.

"This…looks just like ordinary black bread."

"Patience, my child."

Nezumi poked a few more items in her menu and a small pot appeared in her hand. She placed the pot on the bench between us, then tapped the lid and the tip of her finger began to glow. Her finger left behind a trail of thick, golden cream as she ran it across the top of her bread slice.

"Whoa!"

"Try some," Nezumi said before she started to nibble on the bread.

"Wait… What's the catch?"

"Catch!?" Nezumi gasped mockingly, putting a hand over her chest to indicate having her heart broken, and turned to face me with an exaggerated look of pain. "Why, Nanashi! There is no catch. I just wanna do somethin' nice fer a friend!"

"So…you're not gonna charge me?"

"Nope. On the house, kiddo. Help yerself."

"OK…" I tapped the lid of the tiny pot and my finger began to glow. Then, I ran it across the top of my bread. My stomach growled when the cream appeared, and I swallowed in anticipation. I took a bite out of the bread and froze for a moment, then stuffed the rest of it into my mouth all at once.

"Heh. Pretty good, right?"

"Yeah… It's delicious! Where'd you get this stuff?"

"Heheh…" Nezumi half grinned, half smirked, and the evil glint in her eye was back. "Well," she started, kicking her feet back and forth as she nibbled on her bread. "I can tell ya. And ya won't even have to pay for the info."

"Not with Col, anyway…"

"Nyaha, you really are a smart boy."

"So, you'll tell me how to get this cream if I help you with that quest you mentioned earlier. That right?"

"Bingo."

I tightened my grip on the edge of the bench and took a sharp breath, then let it out slowly. "Why me? I couldn't have been your first choice."

"Nope. You were pretty much last on my list, actually," she chimed carelessly. "Everyone else is either busy with their own stuff or too scared ta leave town."

"Don't I fall into the latter category, though?"

"Maybe… Maybe not…"

"What the heck is that supposed to mean?"

Nezumi sat up straight and looked serious for the first time since I'd met her. She stopped kicking her feet, then gazed off into space and spoke softly. "You're scared, I get it. We all are. But you're not like the rest of these people. Sittin' here on your hands, wastin' away in bed, waitin' for a rescue that'll never come… That's not who you are. Ya just don't know it yet."

I held my breath as she spoke and my eyes widened a bit. "What makes you say that…?" This sounded to me like one of those moments in anime where someone tells the hero that he's destined for greatness or something like that.

"Hm…" Nezumi bit her lip and lowered her head, then began to fidget, touching the tips of her index fingers together. Then, just as I let myself think she looked cute like that, she snapped back to her usual self and shrugged. "I dunno."

"Huh…?" I asked, confused.

"I guess I just said that stuff 'cause it sounded cool in the moment."

"…What…?" I asked, outraged.

"Nyahaha. Anyway, ya can't give up. Aren't there people in this world that ya wanna protect?"

I blushed a bit and felt my heartbeat quicken. "What makes you think so…?"

Nezumi jumped to her feet and clasped her hands together at her chest, then began to flutter her eyelashes. "Mathilde! Mathilde!" she sang.

"!?"

"I'm coming, Mathilde! I'll save you!"

"Where did you hear that!?"

"You talk in your sleep."

"I thought you couldn't hear through another player's door!"

"Nyahaha, maybe ya left it partially open by accident. So, who's Mathilde, anyway?"

"Shhh!" I hissed. I looked around and noticed that several people, player and NPC alike, had stopped what they were doing to watch Nezumi's performance. "Alright, I'll help you with your stupid quest!"

"Really!? Yay!" Nezumi clapped her hands and hopped once, grinning from ear to ear.

"Just…promise me we'll be careful."  
"Don't worry, kiddo. I'm not gonna let anything happen to ya."

"You'd better not. Because if I die, I'll come back as a ghost-type mob and haunt you."

. . .

Just before we reached the main gate leading out of Tent City I opened my menu and equipped the leather chest piece, fingerless gloves, belt, and short sword that came by default with every avatar, as well as a brown leather jacket I'd bought from a street vendor. Spending my precious Col on a jacket instead of food was probably not a smart move, but I thought it looked cool. Plus, its stats were nothing to sneeze at.

Nezumi snickered. "Is that really all you have?"

"Yeah. I haven't gone outside since the first day."

"Seriously…? Wow, your level must be pretty low. What're you, like, level three?"

"Nailed it."

"…Oh, boy…"

"…What?"

"N-nothing!"

"…Why'd you stutter just then?"

"No reason! It's nothing ta worry about."

"Nezumi!"

"Hey! Relax, kiddo. I said I'd keep ya safe, and I meant it. The plan was ta be careful from the get-go, so everything'll be just fine. Nothin's changed."

"…Right…"

We pushed the gate open and headed into the huge field just outside Tent City. There were Frenzy Boars everywhere, but no players in sight. I assumed that the few who were working to clear the game had already moved on to hunting fields with higher EXP yields.

"So, where are we going, anyway?"

"In there." Nezumi pointed to a dense, massive forest across the field.

"In there…?"

"Yep. To complete the quest we need a 'Little Nepenthes's Ovule.' It only drops from a mob called a 'Little Nepenthes,' and only a specific variant, at that. Nepenthes only spawn in the forest area, so, naturally, we've got ta go in there."

"Of course we do…"

I followed the tiny girl across the field, carefully mimicking her actions as she wove quickly and quietly between groups of Frenzy Boars to keep from drawing their aggro. We reached the treeline without a hitch and followed the path into the forest. The trees were light at first, but as we got deeper into the forest the path disappeared, the trunks of the trees grew thicker, and there were more of them, with their leaves interlocking to block out the sun almost entirely. For a moment I thought it had become nighttime already, but my clock read "13:02". When I asked Nezumi how much further we had to go she told me we weren't even close, so I sighed inwardly and kept my mouth shut for the next forty five minutes.

"Wait a sec…" I stopped in my tracks and and signaled Nezumi to stop as well.

"Hm?" She looked back at me over her shoulder and cocked her head to the side.

"Shh… Do you hear that?"

"…Yeah, I hear it." Nezumi's voice got low and she drew her dagger as the sound of rustling leaves got closer.

"What is that?" I took a step backward instinctively and frantically whipped my head from side to side, looking for the source of what sounded like rapid footsteps.

"Probably…" As Nezumi spoke, a massive shape leaped out of the darkness and into the tiny clearing we were standing in. The huge, canine creature, considerably larger than me, snarled and growled as it bent low to the ground. "Dire Wolves! An' this one's an alpha!"

Nezumi dashed toward the Dire Wolf quickly without a hint of hesitation. "Hurry, Nanashi! We have to kill it quickly!"

"What…? Why?" I drew my sword with a shaky hand, trying to hold back the panic steadily building in my chest. Even on day one I had frozen up in fear, and back then it was still just a game for all I knew. But now I _knew_ the consequences of losing here. I clenched my teeth and gripped my sword tightly, trying to force my body to move, but it was no use.

Nezumi reached the wolf and the blade of her dagger glowed bright blue in the darkness. She darted past the wolf with impossible speed, cutting its flank on her way past, then twisted her body to face the creature again and drove the point into its haunch. "Nanashi! What are you waiting for!?"

When the Dire Wolf turned to face Nezumi and bared its fangs I was finally able to force myself to move. I dashed forward, trying to steel my nerves, and when I got close enough I used Slant, kicking off the ground with my left foot and cutting diagonally upward.

"There ya go!" Nezumi cheered. Her dagger glowed again and she hit the Dire Wolf four times before I could blink. As soon as I could move I hit the wolf with Slant again.

The wolf bounded away from us and lowered its body, growling loudly. I followed Nezumi's lead and we closed the distance as quickly as we could. The Dire Wolf snapped at Nezumi, but she used a Sword Skill to stop the attack, leaving both of them stunned.

"Nanashi! Switch!" Nezumi said.

"Wh-what…!?" The random use of an English word threw me off and I froze, blinking uselessly.

"Hurry up!"

I stood there in a daze, staring at Nezumi and the wolf. In hindsight, "switch" wasn't all that difficult a concept to grasp. But I'd never heard it before, and there were so many thoughts racing through my mind that I couldn't latch onto any of them for more than a second, the most frequent of which being the question "am I going to die here?"

"Tch!" Nezumi clicked her tongue as her and the wolf's post-skill animations wore off. As soon as the Dire Wolf was free to move it sat back on its haunch and threw its head back, then let out a long, ear-piercing howl.

"Dammit!" Nezumi leaped backward and landed beside me.

"What's happening?" I asked, my head darting side to side as I scanned the treeline.

"Reinforcements."

The word had barely escaped her lips before three more Dire Wolves jumped into the clearing.

"We can't handle this…" Although I said "we", what I meant was "I." "We should run!"

I turned around, but Nezumi grabbed my collar before I could take a step. "No!" she screamed. "Nanashi, you can't outrun these things! At level three your AGI stat isn't high enough."

"But we were having a hard enough time with just one!"

Nezumi narrowed her eyes and looked directly into mine. "You're right. If we stay here and fight, we might die. But, Nanashi, if you try to run you _will_ die."

"…" I felt a shiver envelop my body. My every instinct screamed at me to run, but, faced with the two choices I had, even a coward like me could make the right decision.

"OK. I'm with you."

"Ya sure you can handle this, newbie?" Nezumi jeered casually.

I drew in a shaky breath and held it for a moment, then let it out slowly. "Let's go."

"That's the spirit."

Nezumi and I turned around and pushed off each other's backs. I raced toward the pair of wolves on the right side of the clearing while Nezumi closed in on the other two. Once I reached the wolf closest to me I gripped my sword with both hands and swung while roaring savagely. The wolf yelped and recoiled a bit. As the other one got closer I turned my blade over and swung the other way, hitting its snout. It backed off a bit and, as it did, the first wolf lunged forward and sunk its teeth into my ribcage.

I cried out and winced. The creature held on, slowly draining my HP with each second of contact. I bashed the wolf's skull with the pommel of my sword and it let go, shrinking back again.

The other wolf crouched low, baring its teeth. I could tell by its stance that it was about to jump, so I waited, fighting the urge to run. As it leaped toward me I ducked low. The Dire Wolf passed over my head and I quickly cut its belly as it did, taking out a small chunk of its HP. I stood up in time to meet the other wolf's lunging attack, knocking it back with Slant, but as I did I felt four claws tear into the flesh of my back and choked as I watched my HP bar turn from green to yellow.

I glanced quickly at Nezumi on the other side of the clearing. From what I saw in that instant she was carefully repositioning herself so that she and the wolves formed a line with one wolf behind the other, facing her, so that she only had to fight one at a time.

"Of course…" I let the first wolf get off its lunging attack, stepping quickly to the side and letting it pass me. I darted to my left, lining the two wolves up in front of me.

The one closest to me lashed out with its claws, and I held my sword horizontally in front of me, bracing the blade with my left hand. The wolf's claws made contact twice, taking two small chips out of my HP. When its attack ended I executed two sloppy cuts, afraid a Sword Skill would give the other wolf enough time to circle around. Those two attacks did next to nothing, though. The Dire Wolf attacked with its claws again, taking two more chunks out of my HP despite my best effort to block.

 _At this rate_ …

Nezumi seemed to be handling herself without issue, but she still had another wolf to deal with after she finished off the first. That meant I couldn't count on backup any time soon. If things went on like this, I would be dead in a matter of minutes. A wave of fear came with that realization, scrambling my thoughts and nearly paralyzing me. I ordered my brain to think…

I couldn't win this with just one Sword Skill. It was impossible. But just before I allowed myself to sink into despair I remembered something. I didn't have just one Sword Skill. I had two.

"What was it…?" I interrogated myself as I held the wolf's gnashing maw at bay with my sword, watching my HP bar dwindle and turn from yellow to red. "What was the other Sword Skill!?"

But it was no use. There was no way I could remember the second Sword Skill that was unlocked by default in the One-handed skill category. Because I had never looked at it. My heart sank and I felt my eyes well up with tears as I prepared myself for the end.

 _No. Not yet._

I pushed back against the wolf, knocking it into the other one. As it it growled at me I stepped back and repositioned myself so the two Dire Wolves were lined up. "Please…let this work…"

I still had no idea what the second Sword Skill in my arsenal was, but I knew which one I needed it to be. If I was wrong it wouldn't matter, anyway, so I thought I might as well give it a shot. I pulled the hilt of my sword back by my shoulder, parallel with the ground, as I'd seen Mathilde do so many times on the day this nightmare began. It felt as though my heart had grown wings and was trying to fly out of my chest as I heard that whirring sound effect kick in and a blue glow filled the dark clearing. _Yes!_ I screamed internally. The Dire Wolves growled viciously as they charged straight toward me and I roared right back.

"Raaaaaagh!"

The sound that escaped my throat was primal and desperate as I thrust my blade forward and, as I did, my body shot forward like a bullet, my blade leaving a faint trail of blue light in its wake as it tore through the flank of the first Dire Wolf, then the second just an instant later. The first wolf's HP bar shrank considerably, turning red, while that of the second disappeared entirely. The Dire Wolf just behind me stood frozen as its body glowed white before shattering harmlessly. I sighed in relief as I turned to face the remaining wolf.

"!?"

My Sword Skill had sent me flying well past the wolf to the edge of the clearing. The distance, paired with the fact that it was no longer facing me, had caused the Dire Wolf's aggro to shift.

"Nezumi, watch out!"

Nezumi looked over her shoulder at the incoming Dire Wolf. Without blinking, she activated a Sword Skill and dashed forward, passing the last of her two wolves and cutting its flank as she did. The wolf shattered and the polygonal shards disappeared. Then, Nezumi twisted her body as her foot touched the ground and dashed back toward the last Dire Wolf. She drove the point of her dagger into the wolf's chest, depleting its HP and killing it. When the colored fragments had disappeared Nezumi casually returned her dagger to the sheath at her hip.

"Look at that, yer still alive," she mused. "I knew ya had it in ya."

"That makes one of us…" I huffed, my heart still pounding from the battle. "You were awesome back there. How did you manage to stay so calm?"

"Experience, kiddo. I'm used to fightin' in VR."

"Yeah, but not like this…right?"

"Well, it's true that the stakes have never been life or death before. But the feel of it hasn't changed. I know what ta expect, and I know how much I can handle. It's an unfair advantage we veterans have over the newbies."

"Yeah… It's hard to get used to fighting under these conditions."

"Even though ya say that, you're doin' pretty good. For a noob, that is."

"Thanks…I think?"

"At any rate, we're not gonna get very far if ya don't know how to use 'Switch', so I'll show ya before we fight the next mob."

"Sounds good."

It only got darker as Nezumi and I continued deeper into the forest and the sun began to set. Except for the sound of the branches and leaves crunching underfoot as we marched it was quiet, and we made it all the way to a large clearing at what I assume was the center of the forest without any more Dire Wolf attacks.

"There. Ya see 'em?" Nezumi and I crouched low behind a bush at the edge of the clearing and she pointed toward a mass of dark shapes bouncing and squirming in the darkness.

"Sort of…" I squinted, trying make out the shapes. There were six of them in the clearing, and they were grotesque. They looked like massive plant bulbs with huge, gaping mouths filled with human teeth and two tendrils protruding from their bodies, each with a large leaf at the end.

"Those're Nepenthes. That's what we're after."

"Great. Let's get this over with and go home, already."

"Nyaha…"

"What…?" I grumbled.

"It's not gonna be that easy, kiddo. Y'see, those are just the regular 'Little Nepenthes.' What we're lookin' for is one with a flower on top of its head."

"OK… So should we look somewhere else?"

"Nope. My intel says this is the best spawning ground for Little Nepenthes."

"But you just said the mob we're looking for isn't here. So…"

"So we have ta _make it_ appear."

"'Make it appear'…?"

"That's right. If we clear out all the Nepenthes in this area it'll force 'em to respawn. We'll have ta do that until the special mob with the flower on its head shows up."

"OK… How long will that take…?"

"Well, if my intel is ta be trusted, the special variant of Little Nepenthes that drops the 'Little Nepenthes's Ovule' has a spawn rate of less than one percent."

"…"

"Ready ta get ta work, kiddo?"

"Hey, Nezumi…"

"Hm?"

"Where did you get this intel of yours, anyway?"

I looked at her seriously, but she answered with a sly smirk and a wink. "Sorry, kiddo. Trade secret."

Nezumi crept quietly into the clearing, drawing her dagger and keeping low to the ground. She gestured for me to follow and I did so, climbing over the bush and into the clearing—although reluctantly, and not nearly as quietly as she had. I kept close behind Nezumi as she circled around the edge of the clearing and stopped about ten meters away from a lone Nepenthes.

"OK, before we get started," she said, pulling a small throwing pick from her belt. "You're gonna need ta learn how to use Switch. Just do as I say, exactly when I say it. Cool?"

"I'll do my best."

"Guess that'll have to do." The throwing pick glowed faintly as she drew it back by her ear and she threw it with a shocking amount of force. It hit one of the Nepenthes, getting its attention, and the thing flailed its tendril-like vines angrily as it turned to face us, wriggling across the ground with roots that served as tentacles. I uttered a silent "thank you" to the powers that be, grateful that Nezumi had successfully pulled just one Nepenthes's aggro.

"OK, Nanashi, get ready." The Nepenthes came right up to Nezumi and when it reached her it wound its body, pulling one of its vines back behind its massive head. Nezumi reversed her grip on her dagger and twisted her body in turn. A whirring sound effect signaled the Sword Skill's activation, but she waited for a moment instead of using it. Then, as soon as the Nepenthes began to move again, Nezumi unleashed her Sword Skill. She leaped into the air, her blade soaring vertically to meet the Nepenthes's tendril. The impact visibly stunned the Nepenthes, causing it to reel backward and flail its tendrils exasperatedly. "Now, Nanashi! Use a Sword Skill!"

"Right!" I took a few rushed steps forward and activated Slant as quickly as I could. The impact knocked the Nepenthes back even further, and the thing shrieked as its HP went from green to red in an instant. "Whoa…!"

"Not bad, kiddo!" Nezumi chimed.

My post-skill animation ended before the Nepenthes could recover, so I was able to move if I had to defend myself, but I was still a bit shocked by the effectiveness of Nezumi's 'Switch' technique. Nezumi noticed and hit the Nepenthes with a quick, two-part Sword Skill and the last of its HP vanished. She sheathed her dagger and turned to face me as the creature glowed white before exploding colorfully.

"See?" She said, grinning. "With that technique, we'll be done here in no time flat."

"You're not kidding. Where did you learn how to do this?"

"Sorry, kiddo."

"Let me guess…trade secret?"

She smirked. "Bingo." I followed Nezumi back to the bushes at the edge of the clearing. "By the way, do you really only know one Sword Skill?"

"Nuh uh." I puffed out my chest and beamed. "I know two."

"Great… Are you able ta learn any more? This would go a whole lot faster if ya had more than one Sword Skill."

"Two."

"Whatever. Just check, will ya?"

"Sure…" I swiped my hand downward to call up my menu and pressed the "Skills" option for the first time since day one. I looked at the two Sword Skills I had unlocked. I was all too familiar with the first one—Slant. The second one, Rage Spike, was the skill I'd learned in our battle with the Dire Wolves. "OK… Now what?"

"What's your level in One-handed?"

"Fifty two."

"Sweet, there should be two more Sword Skills you can unlock at that level."

I tapped the two grayed out icons in my skill tree that were marked as "Lvl 50."

"Let's see… Horizontal and Sonic Leap… Sonic Leap sounds kind of cool…" I moved to click on Sonic Leap's icon, but Nezumi grabbed my wrist suddenly.

"Wait! How many skill points does Sonic Leap cost?"

"Five…"

"And how many do you have?"

"Uhm…" I scanned my skill tree until I found a number in the top right corner reading "Skill Points." "Six."

"Get Horizontal for now, it'll work better for us."

"…If you say so…" I growled and jabbed at the icon for Horizontal and bought the skill with five skill points, then quickly noted its pre-motion and closed my menu.

"Oh, stop pouting! You can unlock Sonic Leap later."

"Hmph." I puffed out my cheeks and looked away from Nezumi.

"Anyway, ready ta get ta work?"

"Yeah, I'm ready."

"OK, follow me, but not too close. I'll set 'em up for ya."

"Roger."

Nezumi leaped over the bush and dashed toward a pair of Nepenthes. They spotted her and began to wriggle toward her, waving their tendrils in the air frantically.

"We have ta take 'em out quickly before the others reach us. So don't screw up, 'kay?"

I growled, but before I could respond Nezumi hit the Nepenthes closest to her with a four-part Sword Skill, stopping it in its tracks. By the time I was close enough to strike, both Nepenthes were side by side, focused on Nezumi with their backs to me.

"Alright, Nanashi, let 'em have it!"

"Right!" Standing directly between the two Nepenthes I leveled my sword with the ground by my left side and kicked off the ground, leaping a short distance to my right. As I did, my sword traveled horizontally to my right, cleaving a red gash in each of the Nepenthes's backs. The blow took out the rest of the first Nepenthes's HP, and as its form burst into polygonal shards Nezumi hit the second one with the same four-hit skill, killing that one as well.

"Nice work, kiddo," she said, flashing me a "V" with her fingers.

"Thanks. You, too."

"Heads up." She lowered her stance and faced the three Nepenthes that were heading our way.

"Horizontal is still on cooldown…"

"No worries. Just stay calm and go with the flow."

"But—"

"Hey. Didn't I promise I wasn't gonna let anything happen to ya?"

"Y…yeah…"

"So don't worry. We can do this."

"Right…" I drew in a steady breath, narrowed my eyes, and grasped my sword tightly.

The Nepenthes reached us and one of them veered off toward Nezumi while the other two set their sights on me. I remembered what Nezumi had done against the Dire Wolves and circled the Nepenthes so they were in a line with only one visible, then used Rage Spike to zip past them, cutting their flanks in the process. I turned around as soon as my post-motion delay ended and braced my blade with my left hand to block a tendril attack from the nearest Nepenthes. In the corner of my view I noticed that Horizontal's cooldown was almost up. I moved so that the Nepenthes were both in front of me, the three of us forming a triangle, and let them get a little closer before hitting and killing them both with Horizontal.

Nezumi, having already beaten her Nepenthes and sheathed her dagger, clapped her hands slowly. "Wow. Two mobs all by yerself. Li'l newbie's all grown up!"

"Yeah, yeah." I sheathed my sword in the scabbard on my back and folded my arms across my chest. "Did you get the item you needed?"

"Of course not. Weren't you listening before?"

"Oh, right. We have to kill one with a flower on its head. So…how long before the next batch spawns?"

"Should only be a few minutes."

We waited quietly for the Nepenthes to respawn. I began tapping my foot on the ground and Nezumi twirled a lock of hair around her finger. After a few long moments of nothing, flashes of white light popped up around the clearing and dissipated, spawning in five more Nepenthes. None of them had the flower that marked them as the special mob Nezumi was looking for, so we got to work clearing them out. We killed the Nepenthes in about two and a half minutes and waited for another five for the next batch to spawn. Six more appeared, which we cleared out in about three minutes. Then we waited another five minutes and killed the four Nepenthes that appeared. Then we waited for five minutes, then killed five more Nepenthes. This went on for about forty five minutes before I sighed with frustration and stomped my foot like an angry child.

"How long is this going to take!?" I demanded.

"Statistically speaking, it could be another two hours before the flower variant spawns."

"Seriously!?"

"Nyaha, butcha never know, we could get lucky this round."

"Ugh…"

We didn't get lucky that round. We farmed Little Nepenthes for roughly two hours and forty five minutes, taking them out as quickly as we could, then waiting impatiently for them to respawn, repeating this process so many times I lost count. Finally, the special variant of Little Nepenthes with a flower on its head appeared. When we saw it we were so excited that we threw caution to the wind, dashing straight for it and getting ourselves surrounded. I nearly lost all of my HP—again—and, to make matters worse, once my panic attack had subsided Nezumi told me that the flower variant mob hadn't dropped the item she wanted, triggering an entirely new type of episode: a nervous breakdown. Nezumi watched with amusement for a few minutes before opening her inventory and setting her menu to "visible," then showed me the "Little Nepenthes's Ovule" in the item list. The roller coaster of emotion continued. By that point I'd gone from fear to despair to a mixture of elation and blinding rage over the course of just twelve minutes. Once my fit had come to an end I had to wait another two and a half minutes for Nezumi to stop laughing, and by then it was already nearly eight o'clock.

"Ahaha! Ah…" Nezumi wiped a tear from the corner of her eye—a real one this time. she'd laughed so hard that the system had actually generated a tear effect—as we walked through the woods away from the clearing full of Nepenthes. "You crack me up, kiddo."

"Yeah, that's great. Real great. I'm glad you're having yourself a good ol' time. Can we go home now?"

"Hmm…" Nezumi tilted her head to the side and tapped her chin with her finger, looking upward in contemplation. "I'm not sure that's a good idea."

"What!? What do you mean 'not a good idea'?"

"It's dark, so visibility is a problem. Not ta mention headin' back would mean cuttin' through the woods with all those Dire Wolves 'n' who knows what else. That'll take a long time, and with the light levels this low and our fatigue runnin' high, probably not a smart move."

"OK… I guess that makes sense. But what are we supposed to do, then? Wait around until the sun rises?"

"We camp out, of course."

"Camp out…?"

"Duh." Nezumi stopped when we'd reached a small patch of grass surrounded by tall, thick trees and opened her menu. I watched over her shoulder as she tapped the items in her menu and a large roll of cloth materialized in front of her and dropped to the ground with a muffled _thump_.

She crouched to the ground and poked the roll of cloth, calling up another menu, and after a few seconds of tapping options within the new menu the cloth unrolled and took shape with a loud _pop,_ forming a small, canvas tent.

"Wow… If camping were that easy in the real world, I bet a lot more people would do it."

"Yep. Pretty nifty, eh? So, ya gonna set yers up or what?"

"Mine…?"

"Yeah, yours. Don'tcha have one? With the size of the game world, the lack of civilization, and the number of vendors sellin' different kinds of tents, it looks like camping is gonna be a pretty big factor in Legacy's gameplay."

"Of course I don't. Why would I have one?"

"That's right, I forgot. You've been hidin' in Tent City all this time, haven'tcha?"

"…That's right."

"Well, I guess it can't be helped. You can share mine. But just this once, clear?"

"Yes, ma'am. But…are you sure that's OK?"

"Yeah, it's fine." Nezumi pulled back the flap and crawled into the tent, then turned around and poked her head out. "If ya try anything the system will force yer hand back and send me a message askin' if I wanna send ya ta the stocks back in Tent City for harassment. It's called the 'Anti-Harassment Code,' and you betcha I'll click 'yes.'"

There was an audible _gulp_ sound as I swallowed. I wasn't planning to try anything like that, but now I was worried that if I rolled over the wrong way my hand would wind up in the wrong place and I'd end up stuck in those medieval stocks with angry players throwing tomatoes at me before I got the chance to explain.

"Anyway, come in. Make yourself at home." Nezumi's hooded head disappeared into the tent.

This situation wasn't exactly ideal, but I was exhausted and there was no alternative. Or, at least, if there was an alternative I was too tired to think of it. So I dropped to my hands and knees, pulled back the tent flap, and said "pardon the intrusion."

"Haha! You dork," Nezumi teased. By the time I'd gotten inside she was lying on her side with her menu open and had already removed her hooded cloak and dagger, and I saw a flash of light as all of her leather armor dematerialized, then three more flashes as she removed her gloves, boots, and belt so that all that was left was a long, thin, light tan tunic and brown cloth pants that came just below the knees. "I'm pretty sure ya don't have ta say that if it's a tent."

"W-well…" I felt the temperature rise in my cheeks and looked away from Nezumi as I became all-too aware that I was probably the only person to have ever seen her in this state. "I'm not exactly well-versed in camping etiquette, so I thought the rules for visiting someone's home would be a good substitute."

I crawled inside and closed the tent flap behind me, then lay down on the canvas floor and let out a long sigh. "So…we're not gonna get attacked by monsters in our sleep, right?"

"Nah, tent's are little portable safe zones. But they only work fer twelve hours at a time, and they hafta be at particular sites a certain distance away from where mobs spawn. Look next to yer clock—there's a li'l picture of a tent that tells ya we're in a camping zone."

"Oooh…" Sure enough, there was a tent icon beside the clock in the top right corner of my vision.

"Anyway, aren'tcha gonna take off yer armor?"

"Oh, right…" With my eyes half closed I opened my menu and removed my equipment until only the green shirt and brown cloth pants were left, then waved my menu away and let my hand drop to the floor. "You know, it's funny," I said, looking at my clock, which read "20:17" now. "Back in the real world, eight o'clock is just about when I was getting started playing games, not when I was calling it a night. I guess that's just further proof that this really isn't a game…"

"Isn't it, though?" Nezumi said.

I opened my eyes and looked across at her. "Hm?"

Nezumi was curled up with her arms tight against her chest, her whiskered cheeks smiling casually. The sight caught me off guard and I found myself staring for a moment, but she didn't seem to notice. "Games're all about havin' fun, right? Are you sayin' ya didn't have any fun today?"

"I don't know if 'fun' is the right word to describe almost dying."

"Beats lazin' around an inn room all day, though, doesn't it?"

"At least my inn room is safe."

"Haha, maybe. Even so, I'm glad ya decided ta come with me. I had fun."

"Y…yeah…?"

"Mhm." She smiled a little wider and my heart skipped a beat. "Anyway, we'd better get some sleep. I wanna turn in this quest as soon as possible."

"Yeah, alright… Good night."

Nezumi closed her eyes and it wasn't long before she fell asleep. I lay awake for a while, staring at the tent ceiling—if you could call it a ceiling. When I looked over at Nezumi she was still curled into a ball with her arms wrapped tightly around her body. She shivered and whined quietly in her sleep. I thought it was a little strange that Nezumi, as experienced and prepared as she'd been so far, hadn't thought to bring a blanket with her or something of the sort. But then I realized that she probably had one stashed in her inventory. She only had one, most likely, and sharing it with me would be way too awkward, so she was probably refraining from using it to be polite. In other words, she was suffering right now because I was unprepared.

I opened my menu and found my brown leather jacket. It wasn't possible for me to equip it on her myself, and I couldn't give it to her in a trade without waking her, so I pressed "drop" and the jacket materialized in my hands. I closed my menu and covered Nezumi's body with the jacket. She shivered one last time, then the tension left her body and she breathed softly. I smiled and lay down, folded my hands beneath my head to serve as a pillow, and closed my eyes.

It was freezing, with it being December and all, and Nezumi had the only source of warmth between the two of us. But I didn't think hypothermia was a feature in Legacy, and if it was it was probably a debuff at most. So I did my best to ignore the insufferable shivering and eventually drifted off to sleep.

. . .

"Nn-yaaah!" Nezumi stretched lazily like a cat and looked around the tent. She spotted me on the opposite end and crawled over to me, then began poking my ribcage incessantly. "Hey! Wakey wakey! Rise 'n' shine!"

"Nngh… Five more minutes…" I shivered and rolled away, hugging myself for warmth.

"No can do. If ya don't get up right away, I'll collapse the tent with you in it and stick ya in my inventory!" The poking intensified.

"I'm pretty sure that's not possible." I sneezed and shriveled up into a ball.

"What're you all sneezy and shivery for? I slept like a baby."

"Ah…" My cheeks got a little hotter as I remembered covering her with my jacket last night. "That's good…" I pushed myself up to a sitting position and rubbed my eyes.

"Finally! I've been tryin' ta get you up fer, like, ever! Lazy bum."

"I'm pretty sure it's only been a few seconds. Hey…" I looked at Nezumi, then scanned the tent floor. "Where'd it go…?"

"Hm? Where'd what go?"

"My jacket…" I started feeling around the floor.

"Eh? Isn't it in your inventory? I saw you unequip it."

"That's…uh…" I scratched the back of my head and looked away, blushing.

"Hm…?" She tilted her head.

"Well, you see…you were shivering last night, so I took it out of my inventory and threw it over you…"

"…Huh…?" She blinked at me for a moment. "But…didn't you know that items you take out of your inventory are treated as abandoned? Their durability decreases all the way to zero unless they're picked up."

"Wait…what…?"

"Yep. Sorry, kiddo, that thing's long gone."

"Seriously!? Oh, for the love of—this is what I get for trying to do something nice."

"Nyaha! I can't believe you did that! You really are a big noob, y'know that?"

"Gee, thanks…" I growled and crossed my arms.

"That's my line, kiddo," she said softly.

"Hm?"

I looked at her, but the earnestness of her smile was a bit more than I was prepared for and I looked away just before my entire face turned red.

"Oh… I-it was nothing," I stammered.

Nezumi and I opened our menus and equipped all the armor we'd had on before—except for my jacket, which was gone now—and crawled out of the tent, which Nezumi collapsed and put back in her inventory, then started the walk toward Tent City.

We made the journey in silence, for the most part, the peaceful quiet interrupted only by the occasional Dire Wolf attack. We killed each wolf that appeared quickly, bombarding it with Sword Skills before it had a chance to make a peep. Neither of us felt an overwhelming desire to face another horde of them.

We reached the town gate, but instead of going inside Nezumi veered to the left and headed down a narrow trail between the town wall and the treeline. At the end of the trail was a small cottage, outside of which stood a woman with a gold "?" above her head, which marked her as a questgiver. Normally, since I hadn't accepted any quests from this NPC, there would be a "!" instead, but the quest was marked as "in-progress" for all of Nezumi's party members.

"I got the stuff, lady," Nezumi said as we approached the woman. She had phrased it oddly, and I looked at her with a raised eyebrow, wondering just what sort of quest she'd gotten me into, but the woman's response quelled my suspicion.

"Oh, thank heavens! Come in, come in!" The NPC opened the door and stepped aside, ushering us into the cottage. I entered behind Nezumi and looked around.

The cottage was small, but not uncomfortably so. It had a rustic, cozy feel to it, with a small fireplace on the far wall and a warm rug made of wolfskin, and whatever was cooking in the pot on the stove smelled awesome. Unfortunately, however, there was no time to taste it.

"Please, follow me." The NPC woman darted up the stairs and Nezumi and I hurried after her. The woman led us through a door at the top of the stairs and into a small bedroom. When I entered, my heart sank. Lying in the bed against the far wall was a small, frail-looking girl, probably only a few years younger than I was. She was breathing heavily, but other than the strained rising and falling of her chest she didn't move at all. Her eyes were squeezed shut, her skin was pale—almost gray—and she was grasping the bed sheets tightly, both hands balled into tiny fists. I was just about to ask if there was anything we could do for her when the NPC woman spoke again.

"Please, hand it over, if you could. Quickly…"

Nezumi opened her menu, produced the Little Nepenthes's Ovule, and handed it to the woman who then tossed it into a mortar and ground it into dust before adding it to what I assumed was tea. She hurried over to the bedridden girl and lifted her head, carefully pouring some of the liquid between her lips. The three of us watched, holding our breath. A few moments passed and the girl's expression grew softer and her breathing eased, and we all sighed in relief.

"I can't thank you enough for your kind deed, miss," the woman said as she turned to Nezumi.

"Don't sweat it," Nezumi said, shrugging. "All in a day's work."

"We don't have much, but let me give you something for your trouble."

"Well, if ya hafta." I saw the corner of Nezumi's mouth crawl upward toward her ear as she anticipated the reward.

"This sword has been passed down in my family for generations. May it serve you well."

"Yes! I knew it!"

The NPC woman smiled awkwardly at Nezumi's outburst and continued. "And please, take this as well. I hope that it will protect you on your journey."

"Wait—wha?"

The NPC didn't physically hand anything over to Nezumi. Instead, a window popped up in front of her with a list of quest rewards. I peered over Nezumi's shoulder at the window which listed one hundred Col, a sum of EXP, and two items as the rewards for the quest we'd just completed which the window told me was called "Secret Medicine of the Forest."

"What's the matter, Nezumi?" I asked.

"Yer aware that Legacy uses a lot o' the assets from the old SAO server, right?"

"Mhm."

"Well, I'm willin' ta bet that a lotta the quest data's been recycled, not just aesthetic data. This quest proves that much…sorta."

"'Sorta'?"

"Yeah. I heard o' this quest before. 'Secret Medicine of the Forest' is a quest that has ya collect an ingredient for a medicine to cure a sick girl. Back in the SAO days, the reward was this, right here." Nezumi pointed to an item on the list called "Annealed Blade" with an icon marking it as a one-handed sword.

"Cool."

"But I don't remember hearin' anythin' about this guy right here," she said, pointing to the second item.

"Huh… Well, two rewards are better than one, right? Guess you lucked out."

"Nah, _you_ lucked out, kiddo. I think you should have 'em."

"Really? Why, though?"

"That crappy short sword yer usin' has got ta go. And the second item here is to replace the other thing ya lost on my account. Figure I owe ya for it."

"Well…thanks, Nezumi."

Nezumi opened up a trade window and dropped her two quest rewards into her side, then pressed "accept." I accepted the trade as well and closed the window, then opened my menu and clicked on the "Equipment" tab to find the new items. I dragged the Annealed Blade to the right hand slot of my equipment mannequin and felt the weight of my short sword disappear, replaced shortly after by a newer, heavier one. I looked over my right shoulder at a finely wrapped leather grip and a sleek, silver crossguard, but I'd have to wait to see the rest of it.

I clicked on the other item to bring up a description and read it over quickly, then chuckled. "Hey, Nezumi, check out this flavor text: 'Once worn by a great hero who discarded it in favor of finer garb, this coat has been passed on from wanderer to wanderer by means of looting.' So, in other words, it just gets picked off the corpse of the last guy who wore it."

"Guess the question is," Nezumi said with a teasing smirk, "will you be the 'great hero' or the next unfortunate wanderer?"

"Probably the option with 'unfortunate' in the title."

"Nyaha, maybe. Ya gonna try it on or what?"

"Yeah, sure." I dragged my new "Coat of Midnight" into the appropriate slot on my equipment mannequin and a flash of white light surrounded me for an instant, and when the light was gone I was shrouded in darkness.

"Whoa…" I looked down at the black sleeves, the dark hem that fell to my ankles, and noted the black collar now blocking a portion of the lower part of my vision. "Do I look as cool as I feel like I do?"

"Nyahaha!" Nezumi doubled over and laughed, clutching her sides. "You look like some edgy chuunibyou cosplaying an even edgier anime character. Can I call you 'Master of Darkness' from now on?"

"Not a chance," I growled, then smirked. "Henceforth you shall address me as the Master of Dark Flames.' And you can be my partner, 'The Evil Lord's All-Seeing Eye'! Cool?"

Nezumi laughed even harder. "Stop it, yer killin' me!"

Now I was really getting into the bit. I covered my face with my hand, peering between my fingers like the protagonist from an anime that was too gritty for its own good, and spoke dramatically. "None but me could possibly bear the suffering that I endure along my journey…"

"But you are not alone!" Nezumi shouted theatrically, clutching her hand at her chest. Then, she leaned against me, her back against mine, and mirrored my pose, making a "V" with her fingers just in front of her eye. "For The Evil Lord's All-Seeing Eye and the Master of Dark Flames are bound by an eternal contract!"

Now we were leaning on each other not for dramatic purposes but for support, as we were both laughing so hard we could barely stand, and we kept laughing that way until an unexpected sound stopped us short.

"It suits you." The soft, melodious voice came from the girl on the far side of the room who was now awake. She was sitting up and looking directly at me.

"I, uh… Huh…?"

"The mantle of a swordsman—of a hero. It suits you well." The girl smiled softly and innocently, but her gaze was strong and unwavering.

"Well…" By now my smile had vanished, and I found myself looking at the floor. "Sorry, but I'm no hero."

"You're _my_ hero. You saved my life, after all."

"W-well, I, uh…" My heartbeat quickened and my cheeks got hot, and I looked at Nezumi and whispered as quietly as I could. "How is an NPC capable of this kind of conversation?"

"Sword Art: Origin was a huge experiment for developing artificial intelligence. I guess we're seein' the fruits of their labor."

"No kidding…" I turned back to the NPC girl who was waiting patiently for my response. "Well, it was no big deal. I did what anyone would have done."

"That isn't true…" The girl's smile vanished and she looked down at her hands which were folded tightly in her lap. "Not just anyone would have gone to such lengths. So many people turned down my mother's request because of the danger. When I think about what you must have faced on my behalf, I—"

"Hey," I cut her off, taking an involuntary step forward. There were tears forming in her eyes, threatening to spill over at any moment. But now she looked at me, her eyes wide. "Don't sweat it, alright? I'd do it all again if I had to." I regretted my words instantly, and Nezumi wasted no time in making me suffer for it. She nudged my ribs with her elbow and smirked slyly, raising her eyebrow.

The NPC girl gasped softly enough that it was only barely audible, then her smile returned twice as warm as before. "You're so kind… Thank you, mister."

"W-well, it's not really me you should be thanking…" I shot Nezumi a glance that screamed "save me!"

"What're ya talkin' about, Nanashi? This one was all you. The way you cut down Dire Wolves and Nepenthes with one swing, shouting 'I will save her no matter what!' Very heroic."

"That's not even _close_ to what happened!"

The girl giggled. "You two seem very close."

"Who, me and this big lug? Nah, he's just a stray puppy I found in town. Lucky for him he's cute, so I let him follow me around."

"Har har…"

"At any rate, we'd better get goin' so you can rest up." Nezumi waved politely to the girl. "Hope ya feel better, miss."

"Yeah," I said, offering the girl a friendly smile. "Same here."

"Goodbye, my brave hero. Thank you very much. I will never forget you—either of you."

. . .

Nezumi and I had found a patch of grass to sit on near the center of town and had two more pieces of black bread smothered in cream as a late lunch, at which time she gave me a few extra pots of the stuff before finally telling me how to get it for myself. It was a reward for a repeatable quest called "The Heffer Strikes Back" given by a farmer just east of Tent City. But I wasn't planning on going on another quest any time soon.

My clock read "14:34" when we stopped in front of the inn I was staying at.

"Well, that was fun," Nezumi chirped. "Let's do it again some time, eh?"

"Risking my life isn't exactly my idea of fun."

"Well, it certainly ain't boring."

"Can't argue there, I guess…" I looked down at my feet and sighed.

"What's eatin' ya, kiddo?"

"It's just… Would you mind taking these items back?"

"Huh? You mean the cream? Well, if ya don't want 'em, more for me."

"Not those!"

"Damn. Well, it was worth a shot."

"I meant the quest rewards. The sword and the coat."

"Huh? How come?" Nezumi tilted her head to the side. "I think you look really cool, Master of Dark Flames."

I didn't laugh or even crack a grin. I just clenched my fists and stared at the ground, feeling an overwhelming sense of guilt.

"That girl…the NPC…she's wrong about me. I'm not some hero."

"Oh, that…"

"So do me a favor and take these items back, will you? If you're not going to use them, give them to someone who needs them more than I do. Someone who's working toward clearing the game."

"Hmm…" Nezumi furrowed her brow and scratched her cheek, deep in thought. After a little less than a minute, she shrugged casually. "Sorry, kiddo. No trade-backs."

"Seriously? What, are you a grade-schooler?"

"If ya wanna get rid of 'em so bad I guess you can sell 'em ta someone. It's yer decision, after all." Nezumi turned her back to me and waved over her shoulder, already walking away.

"But—"

"I gotta get goin'. This info ain't gonna sell itself, y'know? See ya around, kiddo."

And with that, she disappeared.

I pushed through the inn's double doors and dragged myself up the stairs and to my room, pushing the canvas flap out of my way, and dropped myself on the bed without bothering to unequip my gear. I was exhausted from the past couple of days and all I wanted to do was sleep. But I couldn't.

"You're my hero…" I said aloud. What that girl had said should have filled me with pride. Joy, even. But I only felt guilt. She could have been scripted to say that to the player for all I knew. Hell, she probably was. But that didn't change the fact that I didn't deserve it. Here I was, lying in the safety and comfort of an inn room, while others risked their lives on the frontlines trying to clear Sword Art: Legacy. Trying to save the people who couldn't save themselves. People like me. As I lay awake staring at the ceiling I found myself wondering whether anyone had told them that they were heroes, too.

. . .


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

The sun was just starting to disappear behind Tent City's outer wall when I arrived at Fountain Square and sat on the ground, joining the crowd that was gathering around a single player standing above the rest.

"OK, if everyone's ready we'll get started now."

No one moved or made a sound. The plain-looking player in a blue shirt and brown pants standing on the edge of the fountain took that as his signal to go on.

"The bottom line is this: we're running out of money. At this rate, the Campers will be bankrupt before the end of the month, which will leave us unable to buy food."

"Camper" was a term that came into existence recently to describe the players who chose to remain in the safety of Tent City rather than go out questing and trying to clear the game. As of now, I fell into that category. And I, like the other Campers, was running out of money.

"That's true, Hiro," another player said, "but does it really matter? You don't actually have to eat to survive in this world."

"You're not wrong," Hiro replied. "You don't technically need to eat to sustain your body in Sword Art: Legacy. However, the ExcelRig does simulate the feeling of hunger. If that gets bad enough, morale will start to decline, and we can't let it get any lower than this…"

"You've got a point, there…"

I looked around at the sunken faces of the avatars surrounding me. A symphony of rumbling sounds came from their stomachs to emphasize Hiro's point.

"That's why I've called this meeting. We need to find a way to raise money so the Campers can continue to eat."

"What about quests?" one of the players offered. "There are some relatively easy ones in the areas just outside Tent City."

"True," said Hiro. "But the Col yields are low. We wouldn't be able to sustain the population with just a few people repeating the easy quests over and over. In order for that plan to work, every Camper would have to do the quests for themselves, and that would involve fighting monsters. If everyone were willing to do that, we wouldn't be having this conversation."

"True… Sorry."

"Most MMOs have crafting systems that allow players to make items that they can sell, or, in some cases, even make their own food," another player said, mostly to himself. "I'm sure Legacy is no different, but at this point in the game there aren't enough crafting recipes or ingredients available to us."

"Right." Hiro nodded. "So crafting our own food or means to pay for it is out."

"Dammit! This is hopeless!" A player dressed entirely in black stood abruptly and stomped on the ground once. His teeth were gritted and his fists clenched, and he stared at the ground, avoiding eye contact with anyone. "I say we all just give up and be done with this nightmare. We run out into the fields and let the monsters do the rest. That way that bastard Hirata doesn't get the satisfaction of watching us suffer!"

A murmur kicked up like a cold autumn breeze and my breath caught in my throat as I heard a few hushed whispers of agreement.

"Please, calm down, everyone." Hiro hushed the crowd with a raised hand. "There's no need to resort to that. We're going to get through this—all of us, together. We need to stay strong."

"Hiro," a player called out, raising her voice to be heard over the droning mob. "You must have something in mind already, right? You wouldn't have called this meeting otherwise."

"Yes, I do have a plan of my own, and I apologize for withholding it until this point. I kept quiet because I had hoped that we'd be able to come up with something better."

"Well, let's hear it," said the player who'd first suggested giving up. "Let's hear this grand plan of yours, oh, wise leader."

Hiro ignored the black-clad player and cleared his throat. "If you travel northwest, past the field and through the forest, you'll come to a lone cottage belonging to an old miner. He's an NPC—a questgiver, more specifically. He offers a quest in which you track down and kill a giant, spotted kobold. Unfortunately, there isn't much information to go off of other than that. While the Col reward for completing the quest is high compared to what you can get around here, it's lower than some of the other quests you can pick up on the other side of the forest, and the EXP yield is minimal. For those reasons, the Assault Team and info brokers largely ignored it."

"Let me get this straight," the same black-clad player from before stood up again. "You want us to go fight some monster that even the Assault Team doesn't have any info on? And what the heck is a kobold? I've never heard of that. So that means this thing is completely different from the monsters around Tent City. Did I miss anything?"

"Yeah," said another player. "What if this thing is, like, crazy strong!?"

I couldn't help but agree with them. I knew what a kobold was, but it wasn't that word that concerned me. What bothered me was the word "spotted." When I thought about it, Hiro probably said "spotted kobold" instead of just "kobold" because that's the way the questgiver phrased it. I'd never seen a kobold in this game before, so for all I knew they could be spotted by default. But if they were, why would the questgiver specifically mention that it was spotted? My guess was that this particular kobold, the one with the spots, was a unique variant. Maybe even a Named Monster.

"I'll admit it's not the safest plan," Hiro said patiently over the others. "But I believe it's our best bet at the moment. If anyone has a better idea, I'm open to suggestions."

The square fell silent.

"In that case, we'll go through with my plan. Are there any volunteers?"

The square remained silent.

"I was afraid of that. Everyone, I'd ask that you please stand up."

We did as Hiro asked and rose to our feet.

"Now, would anyone who has not been on a quest after day one please be seated."

Right off the bat, most of the players in Fountain Square sat back down and I did _not_ like where this was going.

"If you have never been into the forest past the fields, please be seated."

Another sizable chunk of players took their seats, leaving only three players standing. My stomach started doing somersaults.

"If you have no experience fighting Named Monsters, please be seated."

Now only one person was left standing.

Hiro approached me. "Your name is Nanashi, right?"

"Y-yes…"

"Nanashi, I'm not telling you to do this, nor am I asking you. I'm begging you. Please, for all our sakes, will you do this?"

"…I will," I said, not feeling that I had much choice in the matter.

After that, the meeting was adjourned. The players gathered around Fountain Square picked themselves up and shuffled off in every direction while I stayed back for a bit and Hiro told me how to find the questgiver. He warned me to be careful, saying that my life was more important than the money, but his eyes were pleading, begging me to be successful. I nodded, and Hiro and I parted ways.

As I started down the path toward the inn I was staying at someone grabbed my wrist and pulled me back.

"Huh…?" I turned around and blinked at the black-clad avatar from earlier.

"Nanashi, was it? What exactly are you trying to pull?"

"What…?"

"What are you playing at by volunteering for that quest? If you're so talented and experienced, why don't you just stick to easy quests and fend for yourself? Or, better yet, why not join the Assault Team? What do you stand to gain by helping the rest of us?" He stared me down and I stared back, unable to move or look away. His eyes were cold pools of black. They reminded me of black holes, the way no light escaped them at all. I felt a shiver go down my spine and tore myself away from his gaze.

"I don't know what you're talking about," I muttered.

"Whatever." He let go of my wrist and stuffed his hands in his pockets as he turned his back to me, then stormed away. "Just one last thing," he called over his shoulder. "I'd stick to minding my own business if I were you, 'hero.'" He turned a corner and disappeared.

"What the hell is his deal…?" I wondered aloud.

"Don't listen to him. I think you're really cool!"

"Aw, thanks. Wait—what?" I spun on my heel and looked around, then down. Standing there, smiling up at me with sweet, innocent eyes and short, messy, chocolate-brown hair was a small girl. By my guess, she was maybe eleven years old, twelve at the oldest. However, I didn't want to assume that after meeting the disproportionately tiny Nezumi. "Oh, hello…miss…" I said awkwardly.

"Hiya, mister," she chirped back. "I'm Himeko! I just wanted to say you're really cool for for going on that mission!"

"Cool…? I don't know about that."

"You are, though! You stood up and accepted that request without any hesitation!" Himeko struck a pose and lowered her voice to sound like a hero from a cheesy action movie. "'I will… I will go, beat the monster, and save everyone'—like that!"

"I didn't say anything like that. I'm not doing this because I want to, you know."

"Yeah, I know. It's dangerous to go alone, after all. That's why I'm going with you!"

"Wait…what? No way. Out of the question."

"Aha! But it wasn't a question, dummy!"

I groaned and started to feel a little more confident about my estimate regarding her age. "There's no way I'm taking you with me. If something happened… I don't want to have the death of a kid on my conscience."

"Ah, ah, ah," she scolded, wagging her finger. "Don't go underestimating me just because I'm young. Kids can be good at video games, too, you know."

She had a point. Still… "The answer is no, and that's final."

"Hmm… OK, I won't go with you. I'll just head in the same direction at the same general time as you. When are you leaving?"

"…Nine o'clock."

"Roger! Oh, and I hope you weren't planning on giving me a fake time. Because if so, I'll have to go into the forest alone and look for you. And I could die in there! You wouldn't want a kid's death on you conscience, would you?"

"…In that case, meet me by the main entrance at eight."

"Teehee, that's what I thought."

Before heading back to the inn, I found a merchant selling tents and bought the smallest, cheapest one they had. After the Secret Medicine of the Forest quest I had just enough Col to buy that and a few rolls of bread. I bought the bread from another vendor and stuffed it in my inventory, then made my way toward the inn and marched up to my room, pushed through the canvas door flap, and dropped myself on my bed.

I closed my eyes and tried to get to sleep, but my mind raced with catastrophic predictions about how the next few days would unfold.

Eventually, I did drift off to sleep and morning came. I got out of bed and equipped my boots through the menu and headed downstairs. I sat at the wooden counter and ordered a piece of black bread from the NPC waitress. When it arrived, I pulled out the little jar Nezumi had given me and quickly smothered the bread with cream, careful not to let anyone else see. I scarfed the bread down and stood up, pushed through the big canvas door flap and into the oppressive sunlight, and made my way toward Tent City's main entrance.

I had hoped that Himeko would have changed her mind last night and wouldn't show up, but, sure enough, there she was.

"Hi, Mister Nanashi!" Himeko waved with a bright smile and equally bright eyes.

"Morning," I groaned and lifted my right hand in a sad attempt at a wave, then used the same hand to stifle a yawn.

"Let's work hard together and beat this quest!"

"Yeah, let's."

"Well, what're we waiting for? Come on!" Himeko turned away and started skipping down the dirt path away from the city.

"Hold on just a sec."

"Come on! What's the hold up?"

I opened my menu and clicked on my equipment mannequin, then quickly dragged my gloves, belt, leather chest piece, Coat of Midnight, and Annealed Blade to the appropriate slots, then closed the menu. In a flash of light, the items appeared on my body simultaneously, the hem of my coat falling dramatically to my feet.

"Whoa!" Himeko gasped. "That was so cool! You look so cool!"

"It's not all that cool… At any rate, where's your weapon?"

"Hm? Oh, right. Don't worry about that. It's kind of a pain to carry around, so I keep it stashed in my inventory. But it's OK, I can get it out super fast. You'll see."

"If you say so." I figured it didn't matter too much. If I had it my way, Himeko would stay behind me while I handled the fighting. Of course, things hardly ever went my way…

"Anyway," she chirped. "Let's get going!" She skipped merrily down the trail and I walked briskly after her.

. . .

"Whoa!"

"Whoa" was right. We had been walking for a good forty five minutes and were deep in the forest when three Dire Wolves appeared out of nowhere. They caught us off guard, so I wasn't able to react in time to keep them from calling in backup. But it didn't matter. As the Dire Wolves leapt at me in turn I swatted them away with my Annealed Blade. One hit was all it took to turn each one into a cloud of colorful, translucent polygons. No Sword Skills necessary.

"Mister Nanashi!" Himeko shrieked. "That was uh-may-zing! You are the absolute coolest! I can't believe how strong you are!"

Himeko was looking at me with her jaw hanging open and her eyes, which were considerably large by default, were bulging out of their sockets. I was looking down at the Annealed Blade in my right hand with the exact same expression. _This thing is_ awesome! I screamed in my head. _Is it really OK for me to have this?_ Ultimately, I didn't care whether or not it was OK. This Annealed Blade was my new best friend.

"Awesome!" Himeko cheered as I destroyed another wave of Dire Wolves with ease.

"Amazing!" Himeko cried as I eradicated a horde of Nepenthes without breaking a sweat.

"So cool!" Himeko squealed as I annihilated a pack of boars in the blink of an eye.

We made it through the forest in a little under two hours. I had been prepared for the trip to take a lot longer, and I was so grateful to my new sword I could kiss it. But I didn't, of course, because that would be weird.

"Where's the little cottage that Hiro mentioned?" Himeko made a visor over her eyes with her hand and scanned the area.

We had exited the forest into another plains area. Instead of a rich green, though, these plains were dusty with patches of faded, dead grass blotting the landscape. The area was littered with the crumbling remains of quaint-looking brick houses, but aside from those ruined structures the area was ominously empty. No mobs or NPCs in sight.

"I don't see it. But there's a path here along the edge of the forest leading west. Maybe it's that way?"

"Maybe. Let's go see."

We started down the path and walked for twenty minutes, enveloped in uncomfortable silence. There were no ambient sound effects playing like birds chirping or squirrels chattering. The only sounds were those of our footsteps and the wind, which blew quietly and deliberately as if agitated by our presence.

At the end of the path sat a wooden cottage. The smoke puffing out of the chimney suggested that someone was still living here. "This must be the place," I said.

"So cute. I want to live here."

I chuckled at Himeko as I stepped up to the door and knocked. After a moment the door opened with a loud _click_ and a heavy creaking sound. An old man with a scrawny build, a long, silver beard, and a one-eyed scowl stood in the door frame. A yellow cursor and the name "Old Miner" hovered above his head. The old man looked at us without saying a word, and the three of us stood in silence for what felt like a very, very long time.

"Uh…" I started. "Hello, sir…"

"…" The old man didn't reply.

"H-how are you today…?"

"…"

Himeko nudged my ribs with her elbow. "We're on a mission! We're not trying to sell cookies!"

"Shush." I thought for a moment. I figured I'd have to say something specific—a certain question or statement that the NPC's AI recognized—in order to trigger the quest, but it was anyone's guess as to what that was. "What're you doing living out here all by yourself?"

"…" The old man glared up at me, his expression unchanging.

"Uhm… Nice place you've got here. Can you tell me about it?"

"…"

"Uhm… What's your story, old-timer?"

"…"

"…There're, like, no people or animals around here. What's up with that…?"

"…"

"…"

"You were so reliable before, but now…" Himeko looked at me with a mixture of pity and disappointment.

"I don't see you coming up with anything."

Himeko snickered and turned away from me.

"Hrrrm…" I crossed my arms and closed my eyes, flipping through the images in my mind that I thought could be relevant to the situation and, finally, I had something. "Could you tell us about the ruins to the east?"

"So ya wanna know 'bout the ruins, do ya?"

"Aha!" My heart leaped, forcing me to hop with it, and I pumped both fists in celebration.

Himeko snickered again. "…Adorable."

"Ahem." I cleared my throat and tried to ignore the burning sensation in my cheeks. "Yes, please tell us what you know."

"Come on in here, then. Siddown."

Himeko and I exchanged skeptical glances before stepping into the cottage. The old man produced two wooden chairs and ordered us to sit. We sat. He then spent a few moments by the stove and came back with two small cups. "Drink," he said, shoving the cups into our hands. I was cautious at first, but the liquid in the cup seemed to be tea, so I sipped it politely, as did Himeko.

"You wanna know the story behin' the ruins, eh?" the old man repeated himself. "Well I'll tell ya. It's all thanks to the Kobold Lord 'n' his army. Or what's left of it, anyway."

 _Kobold Lord?_ I thought. I wondered if that could be the spotted kobold Hiro sent us after.

"The Kobold Lord's sent his minions to pillage the town for generations. After a while it became too much for folks. They up 'n' left, now I'm the only one who's still here. Ain't no mangy kobold gon' drive me off o' my property."

"You're really brave, staying here even though those nasty kobold are so close by," Himeko said.

"Hrmph." The old man rocked back and forth in his chair.

"So," I said, trying to move the quest along. "Would it make things easier for you if we got rid of this Kobold Lord?"

"Pffft," the old man spat. "Naw. The kobold 'round these parts haven't answered to him for years. Them's a splinter cell, y'see?"

"Oh…?"

"These kobold answer to a commander by the name o' Death Spots."

"Death…Spots…?" Himeko and I said together.

"That's right. I know his name 'cause I'm the one who gave it to 'im. Ol' Death Spots is a big kobold—bigger'n all the other kobold, but smaller'n the Kobold Lord—an' he got dark spots all over his fur, an' catchin' sight o' him means certain death! That's why I gave 'im the name 'Death Spots.'"

The monster this old geezer was talking about was definitely the spotted kobold we were looking for. Moreover, based on this description, "Death Spots" was definitely a Named Monster.

"So, where can we find this 'Death Spots,' sir?" I asked, leaning forward in my chair.

"Hold on, sonny! I ain't finished yet!"

"Right! S-sorry!"

For the next thirty eight minutes I sipped my tea calmly and politely while resisting the urge to find the nearest solid object and bash my skull against it repeatedly. Apparently, before we could accept the quest, we had to sit and listen to this old guy regale us with the tale of his many encounters with Death Spots, how he'd just barely escaped with his life on numerous occasions, and how his last attempt to take down the spotted kobold had cost him a whole party of fighters from the now ruined town. All of this was very tragic, but the sooner he'd shut up, the sooner we could go avenge him and his friends.

"…an' to this day I stay here, waitin' for a chance to get back at that spotted demon. An' now you folks come along, 'n' I get to thinkin' maybe you can give ol' Death Spots what's comin' to 'im in my place."

"Yes… We'd be glad to…" I sighed. "If you could just tell us where…?"

I stole a glance at Himeko who, despite her age, was showing remarkable patience. She rocked back and forth in her chair slowly and sipped her tea, then let out a contented sigh.

"You can find ol' Death Spots by headin' through the ruins 'n' followin' the trail through the rotted woods. You'll come to the mouth of a big ol' cave that looks like death itself lives in there. Which it does, 'cause that's where you'll find ol' Death Spots himself."

 _Finally!_

"Right," I said, jumping to my feet and practically leaping to the door. "Come on, Himeko, let's get out of here."

Himeko leaned back in her chair and finished the rest of her tea. Then, she leaned forward and handed the cup back to the Old Miner. "Thank you very much for the tea, sir. It was delicious!"

"Hrmph. It ain't nothin' special. I'm glad ya liked it nonetheless."

"And thank you for the story. Don't worry, we'll take care of that mean old kobold for you. Your friends can rest easy."

"Agh! Go on, git!" The Old Miner's face turned red and he swatted the air as if trying to fan Himeko away. "Git along now, li'l missy. And you take care now, y'hear?"

Himeko laughed. "I will. You, too, mister."

Himeko's face went from sweet to sour the moment the door closed. "Ugh," she sighed. "I thought he'd never shut up."

"What's with the sudden change in attitude?" I asked as we started along the path. "You two seemed to be getting along just fine."

"Well, I didn't want to be rude. Just because he's an NPC doesn't mean I'm gonna forget my manners…like a certain someone."

"Ahaha…"

The eerie silence returned as we neared the ruined village, so I started to talk again to ease my own nerves. "So, Himeko, why did you want to come with me, anyway?"

"Well, I was starting to feel a little guilty just sitting around the city and waiting for something to happen, but I was way too scared to go out on my own. I would've gone out with a party or something, but of course all of the people who were willing to leave Tent City are long gone."

"So you _wanted_ to go out into the field and put yourself in danger?"

"It's not that I wanted to put myself in danger. I wanted to help. I just don't feel right sitting on my butt when I could be doing something more, you know? I can't just sit back while people like you risk their lives for my sake."

I felt a pang of guilt as she spoke. I don't know where she'd gotten this image of me as some kind of hero, but she couldn't be more wrong. This little girl, who _wanted_ to be out here, who was willingly putting her life on the line for others, had ten times the guts that I did.

"You're an inspiration, Nanashi!"

"Listen, Himeko, I'm not—"

I stopped mid-sentence and strained my ears. The ruins weren't quite as silent as they'd been before.

"Hm? You're not wh—"

"Shh…"

I could just make out a sort of snarling sound on the other side of the crumbled wall to my left.

"Watch out!" I grabbed Himeko's collar and jumped backward, just barely avoiding a small, anthropomorphic canid creature that had jumped over the wall swinging a hand axe.

"Nice save," Himeko huffed.

I drew my Annealed Blade and pulled it back, queuing up Rage Spike, and trained my gaze on the Lesser Kobold. As soon as the skill activated, I thrust the blade forward and dashed past the creature. As soon as the post-motion delay ended I spun around and swung my sword twice, taking out the rest of the kobold's HP. A second passed and the kobold lost all of its color before exploding into a million pieces.

"There's more!" Himeko cried as I was starting to sheathe my sword.

"Dammit…" I drew the blade again and faced two more Lesser Kobold that had just appeared from behind another ruin. "Stay back, Himeko…" I backstepped one of the kobold's axe swings, then waited for the other one to get close and hit them both with Horizontal. The skill took a little more than half of each kobold's HP. I just had to be careful and wait for a chance to—

"Nanashi!"

I twisted around to look at Himeko. She was pointing to yet another ruined building. Three more Lesser Kobold were climbing over one of its walls, snarling and glaring in our direction.

"Are you kidding me…!?"

I turned back to the first two kobold and lashed out twice. I managed to hit them both, killing them, but not before taking a hit from the closer of the two.

I grabbed Himeko's hand and started to run back the way we came from, but I'd barely started moving before two more kobold dropped from the walls on either side of the path and blocked the way.

"So that's how it is…" I hissed through clenched teeth. "I'll have to fight, then," I said to myself. Despite those words, my hands had already begun to shake. I gripped my Annealed Blade with both hands, my eyes darting side to side as I backed into an alley with Himeko behind me.

"You can do it, Nanashi!" she cheered.

The kobold were closing in, and with each moment more of them showed up. I let three of them get close to me—as many as I dared—before unleashing another Horizontal and sending them flying. Two of them hit my exposed flank while I was caught in the post-motion delay. My breath caught in my throat, but I choked back the panic and tried to think.

I only had three Sword Skills, but I couldn't risk using Rage Spike under these circumstances. I'd shoot past my target, leaving Himeko exposed. Slant could only hit one target, so it was all I could do to fend off the kobold while I waited out Horizontal's cooldown period. But that wouldn't be easy. After the fiasco with the Nepenthes in the woods I'd reached level four. But these Lesser Kobold seemed to average at about level six, and I was severely outnumbered.

I braced my blade with my free hand to block an incoming overhand swing from one of the kobold and kicked it back, then parried another blow from my right and made two wide cuts to force the kobold to back up, but the others were getting closer and my breathing was starting to accelerate. I used Horizontal again as soon as it was ready, but I only managed to hit two of the kobold this time. I took three more hits from the other kobold and my HP turned from green to yellow.

"Rrk!" I grunted. I had been about to swear, but somehow, even in this situation, I had the wherewithal to remind myself there was a child present. _That's right… It's not just my life that's at risk. If I die here, then Himeko…_

I growled as I lashed out at the two closest kobold, then used Horizontal again, pushing back another three. Two of them lost the remainder of their HP and shattered, but just as I allowed myself to smile my relief was replaced by fresh despair. More and more kobold were pouring into the street by the second, and there was nowhere left to run. I was fighting a bit more carefully now, allowing only a few nicks to get past my defense and carefully timing my Horizontal to hit as many kobold as possible, buying as much time as I could for my recovery, but we wouldn't last long like this. And then, to make matters worse…

"What the…?" I stood in the starting position for another Horizontal, but, as the kobold closed in around me, nothing happened. "What's going on? Why won't it work!?" I checked the skill icon in the lower right corner of my vision. Horizontal's icon had disappeared, meaning the cooldown period was over. "So why…?"

"You have to watch your SP gauge!" Himeko screamed.

"M-my…my what!?" I shrieked as I held off three of the little monsters.

"Your Stamina Points! The purple bar under your HP. Don't you know that already…?"

"Uh…" _What purple bar!?_ I scanned the upper left corner of my UI for the gauge Himeko was talking about, but I didn't see anything. _No… Wait._ There was a bar after all. I almost didn't see it, because it was so completely empty, but there was a tiny sliver of purple beneath my dwindling HP bar. _Dammit!_ I cursed myself. All this time there had been a stamina cost _in addition_ to the cooldown periods when it came to Sword Skills and I'd had no idea. I wanted to curse Nezumi for not telling me. _Some info broker,_ I whined. But the reality I didn't want to face was that this was my fault. That bar had been there all along. All I had to do was look, and I would have noticed it dropping every time I used a Sword Skill. I hadn't been paying attention, and now I was going to die because of it.

A choked gasp leaped out of my throat at the sight of my HP bar turning from yellow to red. "Himeko…I'm sorry," I said, squeezing my eyes shut. "Run away the first chance you get, OK?"

"No, Nanashi. It's OK."

"…What?"

"Just hold out for a little while longer. Everything is gonna be OK."

"What're you…?" I cast a glance backward at Himeko who was now waving her fingers in midair, focusing intently on the space in front of her. _What the hell is she doing?_ I wondered. At first I thought she might be casting some kind of spell, but Legacy didn't have magic. But if she wasn't casting a spell, then what was…

"!"

It hit me. She wasn't casting a spell. She was using her menu. She was looking for something. I didn't know what, but I didn't have a whole lot of options, so I decided to put my faith in her.

"Rrrraagh!" I growled and shoved against the kobold that were trying to push my sword away, then swung my blade from side to side in a frenzy and took a few steps forward until I reached the mouth of the alley. My eyes went wide and I stood frozen for a moment, gaping at the swarm of kobold that had amassed.

"Nanashi! I'm ready!"

Himeko's shout snapped me out of my daze. "OK…!" I took one more step forward and used Horizontal, clearing a space for Himeko. "Switch!" I shouted.

Himeko dashed forward, ducking under my extended arm and coiled her body.

"What the…!?" I choked at the sight of her.

The tiny girl was holding a sword. Not a one-handed sword like my Annealed Blade, though. It was massive. The blade's width was about the same as her body, and its length was easily over twice her height.

As the horde of kobold closed in on the girl, her blade began to glow a deep green. "Hah!" she breathed as she stepped forward and swung her giant sword from right to left. With that one swing, Himeko hit five of the kobold around her. Every one of them lost all of its HP in the blink of an eye. There were still seven kobold left, and they lunged toward Himeko. But her blade was still glowing—the Sword Skill wasn't finished. "Hiya!" Himeko spun on her heel, swinging the sword in a full circle in the same direction. All seven of the remaining kobold were caught in the swing, and all seven burst into a sea of polygonal shards.

Himeko turned to face me, beaming. She drove the point of her sword into the ground and leaned on it lazily. "Not bad, huh?" she sang.

"Well… I can see why you keep that thing stashed in your inventory…"

"Yeah, it's kind of a pain to carry around, you know?"

"Yeah… Even so…could you maybe…"

"Hm?"

"…Could you maybe just keep it equipped for now?"

"Oh," Himeko laughed and scratched her cheek. "Yeah, I guess I could do that."

From that point on, getting through the ruins was easy. We had a system. Himeko would take point as we ran, knocking groups of kobold out of our way with her Blast and Cyclone Sword Skills while I stayed behind her and took care of any that made it around her attack or snuck up on us from behind. If Himeko ran out of SP or her skills were still on cooldown I would move up front and clear our way with Horizontal, which bought her enough time to recover. We made it through the ruins in no time flat, shared a celebratory high five, and pressed on without any more trouble.

We walked for about twenty minutes along a dirt trail through a forest full of dead, leafless trees. The occasional band of Lesser Kobold jumped out at us, but, no longer confined to the tight spaces of the ruins, we had no trouble taking care of them. I worried a little when a group of five kobold appeared while we were already fighting a group of six, but I managed to shake off the initial panic and keep a clear head. After all, I wasn't alone. Himeko, with her sword that was bigger than her, was quite the force to be reckoned with. I was glad she was on my side.

"One hundred Col says Death Spots is in there," I said as the trail ended before the mouth of a cave.

"It's so dark!" Himeko said. "Seriously! I can't see inside at all. It's like the cave is eating the light or something."

"No, I don't think that's it." She was right, though. Even though the sun was behind us, shining directly on the cave's mouth, I couldn't see inside no matter how hard I squinted. "I think this cave is its own cell."

"Cell…?"

"Yeah. In other words, it's not part of Sword Art: Legacy's world space. It's probably an entirely separate map that's connected to Legacy. We can't see inside because the details of the cave haven't been rendered, and they probably won't be until we go in. We might even have to sit through a loading screen or…why are you looking at me like that?"

"Did you spend _any_ time outside back in the real world?" Himeko was looking up at me with that same mix of disappointment and pity from earlier.

"W-well…the real world doesn't matter since we're in Sword Art: Legacy. Let's hurry up and beat Death Spots, OK?"

"You dodged the question. Guess that means 'no.' Are you some kind of shut-in otaku?"

"Go easy on me…"

Himeko giggled. "Thanks for that. I feel a little better now… Are you ready?"

"Yeah… Let's get this over with." I took a step forward toward the pitch-black cave entrance.

"Wait…" Himeko reached out and took my hand. "OK, _now_ I'm ready."

I nodded and squeezed the tiny hand in mine, then Himeko and I stepped into the cave.

It was complete darkness at first, but after a few moments the walls and floor of the cave started to materialize. I couldn't tell if that was my eyes adjusting to the low light or if it was just a snazzy rendering effect. I looked behind me at the cave entrance. It was perfectly, blindingly white with a glowing visual effect around it meant to look like sunlight. As I'd expected, I couldn't see anything outside the cave. Not the trees, the dirt path, or the sky—nothing.

"Yup, it's another cell, alright."

"But I didn't see any of those loading screens or whatever you mentioned."

"Maybe there was one, but we just weren't conscious of the time we spent in loading limbo. The ExcelRig controls our brains, after all. It's not impossible that it could alter the way we perceive time."

"OK, Mister Nerdy Pants. Let's get to work!" Himeko started forward, tugging me along behind her.

"Wait."

"Hm? What is it?"

"Well…it's just that…" I looked down at my hand, still clasped in hers, then looked away, scratching my cheek. "We're gonna need those."

"Right, ha ha…" Himeko let go of my hand.

"I'll take point from here on out," I said, walking ahead of her. She'd never heard terms like "cell" or "world space" before, so I figured she wasn't too familiar with games that had dungeons. "Watch my back, OK? I'm counting on you."

"Roger!" she chimed.

I became aware of certain ambient sounds as we walked deeper into the cave. Things like drops of water hitting the rocky floor or the occasional squeal from a bat. I never saw any bats, just heard them. There was also this strange, low, constant humming sound. I couldn't really compare it to any real sound. I thought it might be the wind or something. It was just one of those ambient noises that caves and dungeons tended to have in RPGs. The further away we got from the cave entrance, the only source of light so far, the darker it got.

"That's weird," Himeko said.

"What is?"

"Even though there's no light, I can still see. I mean, I can't see _much,_ but if there's no light you'd think I wouldn't be able to see at all."

"Yeah. My guess is the system ensures that you can always see at least a little bit when you're in a dungeon. A brightness setting or something like that."

"That's good because I didn't bring a light or anything. Guess you didn't either?"

"Nope."

"Thought so."

"I find your lack of faith disturbing…"

"We haven't seen any monsters for a while, huh?"

"That's true. I would've expected to see at least a few kobold or something."

"Yeah. But, you know, that actually kind of makes me more scared…"

"I know what you mean. The anticipation in situations like this can be unbearable sometimes."

"Do you think that's on purpose?"

"Yeah, I do. We've been walking for a long time now. The path twists and turns, and it seems to go on forever, but it hasn't branched off or anything. I think it's just one long path to Death Spots. No mobs, no treasure or anything. Just a long, quiet, creepy walk to our doom."

"Hey!" Himeko shrieked, stomping her foot.

"What?" I stopped and looked back at her, blinking.

"Don't phrase it like that! Idiot! Are you _trying_ to freak me out!?"

"S-sorry! I just meant—you know—it's spooky and stuff!"

Himeko stopped walking and a few seconds of silence passed.

"Himeko…?"

At first she chuckled, but then she doubled over, holding her gut and laughing until her eyes teared up. "Ha ha…" she huffed. "'Spooky and stuff.' Somehow being with you makes this whole thing a little less scary."

"Glad I can help a little bit," I said, offering a smile. "We're almost there. Looking at the map, there's a huge open space just ahead of us. I think that's the boss room."

"OK… I'm ready. Let's go kick that Spotted Death's butt!"

"…I think it was 'Death Spots.'"

"Oh, whatever. Let's go already."

"Right."

We walked just a few more meters in silence and came to the end of the long corridor where the cave expanded into a huge room that was forty, maybe fifty meters across. Pushed up against the wall were all sorts of clutter items like broken crates, barrels, bones, and even bits and pieces of treasure. Lying dead center in the room was a huge kobold with white fur covered in dark purple polka dots. I focused my gaze on the kobold for a moment, prompting the system to display a dark red cursor along with a nametag that read "NM: The Death Spots."

"There he is," I whispered.

"It looks like he's sleeping," Himeko said.

"Yeah. Sounds like it, too." There was a low, deep, constant growling sound wafting across the room that I assumed had to be what a kobold sounded like when it snored.

"Let's sneak up on him!" Himeko started to shuffle across the room toward the huge kobold.

"Wait!" I hissed, grabbing her hand.

"What?"

"I'm down for trying a sneak attack, but we have to be careful. It looks like it's asleep now, but it might be scripted to wake up once we get close."

"Scripted…? Like a play?"

"Uhm…yeah, something like that." I said. Himeko looked willing to listen, so I let go of her hand and explained. "If you think about it like a play, getting within a certain distance would be Death Spots's cue to get up and attack us, so we have to be prepared for that."

"Oh… OK."

"Get your weapon ready," I said as I drew my sword from my back. Himeko followed suit.

As we tiptoed across the spacious room with our weapons in hand I couldn't help being reminded of this really old cartoon I saw a while back, and it took every ounce of my self-control not to imitate the hunter character and say "be vewy, vewy quiet."

Death Spots didn't so much as stir until we got about ten meters away from it, and then, suddenly…

"Tch…!" I clenched my fists and gritted my teeth as Death Spots began to rise, lifting a huge sword from behind him that I hadn't seen before. The sword looked to be made of bone with animal hide wrapped around the grip and spikes protruding along the edge.

"Let's go!" I shouted, breaking into a sprint. I thought that if I ran fast enough I could leave the fear behind. I told myself that if we attacked first we could still somehow have the upper hand.

"Right behind you!" Himeko said, following at my heel and holding her huge sword low to the ground.

Death Spots roared. Visual effects accompanied the sound, including rippling sound waves which came from his maw and blurred my vision when they reached me.

"Rrraaaaagh!" I roared back, my heart pounding in the back of my throat as I pulled my Annealed Blade back by my right shoulder and charged toward Death Spots with Rage Spike.

Death Spots swung his sword downward, but by the time it made contact with the ground I had already flown past him. While he was stuck in his post-motion delay, Himeko hit Death Spots with Blast.

I took another step forward, twisting my body and spinning on the ball of my left foot while activating my Horizontal Sword Skill. As I turned to face Death Spots I unleashed the skill, cutting deep into the huge kobold's fur-covered back. Death Spots wailed in frustration. The same sound wave effect played, blurring my vision and causing my ears to ring.

"Get back!" I called to Himeko.

We got out of Death Spots's range just before he began a slow, three-part Sword Skill that looked like it had a huge AoE. I had no doubt it would have done massive damage, too, if we had been caught in it. Death Spots turned to face me and raised his sword high above his head. I held my own sword low by my left side and waited, watching Death Spots's sword carefully. As soon as it began to descend I used Slant and our blades collided, leaving both of us reeling from the shock.

"Switch!" I called.

Himeko had a Sword Skill of her own cued up before I said anything and unleashed it as soon as Death Spots was open. Then, Death Spots roared again, using the same three-part Sword Skill, reaching three hundred sixty degrees around his body. Himeko and I jumped out of the way again, just in time. I glanced at the two HP bars floating above Death Spots's head. Even though we'd hit him with four Sword Skills already, Death Spots had only lost a small fraction of his first bar. But still, it was something. And Himeko and I still had all of our HP. _It will take some time,_ I told myself, _but we can do this._

Death Spots took a moment to recover from his AoE attack, and I used that time to circle around him, joining Himeko. "Let's stay close," I said. "I think we can prevent him from using his AoE attack if we're both on the same side of him."

"His what-now?"

"His 'area of effect' attack."

"In Japanese, please!"

"Just… Grrr!" I growled, stepping to the side to dodge a vertical swing. "Just trust me on this one, OK?"

"OK…fine!" Himeko grunted as she hit Death Spots with Blast. "Phew…" she huffed. "I trust you."

We took turns defending and attacking from that point on. Himeko didn't quite trust her timing, so instead of blocking Death Spots's Sword Skills with skills of her own, she blocked normally. This meant she took a bit of damage each time she defended, but it wasn't much. She was able to recover it with potions while I covered her, though she did complain about their bitter taste. As I expected, Death Spots stopped using his AoE attack since Himeko and I were both in front of him, so the only time we had to stop attacking was if we ran out of SP or Himeko needed to heal. After about twenty minutes, Death Spots's first HP bar was nearly empty.

"Switch!" I called as I knocked the huge sword away with Slant.

Himeko dashed past me, twirling and cutting Death Spots twice with her Cyclone skill and draining the last of Death Spots's first HP bar. The second bar turned from green to yellow.

"Careful," I said. "Now that his HP is at half, his attack patterns might change."

As if on cue, Death Spots roared louder than ever before—loud enough that we had to cover our ears, and the sound wave effects made it impossible to see for a moment. The huge, spotted kobold's eyes began to glow red.

Death Spots glared in my direction and swung his sword without warning.

"!?" I gasped as I raised my sword in front of me, bracing the blade against my left hand.

The next swing came just as quickly, but this time Death Spots attacked with the claws on his left hand. He followed up with another swing from his sword, then slashed with his claws again, then finished the combination with a powerful overhand swing.

In just three seconds, just five hits, my HP bar had gone from completely full to more than half empty. _If I take one more attack like that, I'll_ …

"Get back and recover!" Himeko screamed over her shoulder as she swung at Death Spots.

"Huh…?"

"Nanashi! Hurry up and drink a potion!"

"Oh… Right…"

I shuffled back a few steps and reached for the pouch hanging from my belt. My hands were shaking so it took a moment to undo the clasp, but I got the pouch open, pulled out a potion, and chugged. Then, with my HP steadily regenerating, I shook my head and clenched my fists.

"OK, switch," I said.

Himeko used Cyclone as Death Spots began another Sword Skill. She took a bit of damage, but her second swing hit Death Spots's giant sword, cancelling both skills. I took advantage of the opening and used Slant, sending Death Spots reeling backward.

Himeko downed another potion and turned to me. "Bleh… OK. Since my sword probably has higher defense than yours, I'll handle defending. You step in to attack every time he finishes a move. OK?"

"No. Sorry. I'm not comfortable with that."

"What?" Himeko raised an eyebrow.

"If you're blocking regularly instead of using skills to defend, then your HP will go down."

"Yeah, but I've still got plenty of pot—"

"It doesn't matter. We can't treat our HP like some throwaway resource that we can recover whenever we want. It's our life, and if you're too careless with it you'll lose it."

"I get what you're saying, but…what choice do we have? That thing is too fast. There's no way you can block it with a skill in time!"

"I don't have to be fast. It's subtle, but Death Spots telegraphs a bit before he attacks."

"Tele-what-now…?"

"Don't sweat it. Just leave defense to me."

"OK… If you're sure. Let's finish this thing, then!"

"Right!"

I ran straight up to Death Spots and readied my sword, then, when he bared his teeth, I cued up Horizontal and prayed that I was right…and I was.

Death Spots swung his sword immediately after showing his fangs. It would have been the same five-hit combo from earlier, but I managed to stop the first hit with my own Sword Skill.

"Switch!"

Himeko took my place and used Cyclone, hitting Death Spots twice. As soon as I could move again I swung my sword twice at the kobold's flank to ensure I'd draw aggro for the next attack. This time, Death Spots used one of his original attacks, lifting his sword high above his head and bringing it straight down. I cancelled the skill with Slant and signalled for Himeko to switch. She dashed in and slammed her blade into Death Spots's rib cage, and I hurried to pull aggro again.

Death Spots leaped backward about ten meters and roared, then bent low to the ground.

"Move to the side!" I shouted. I dashed to my left while Himeko ran to the right, and Death Spots got on all fours and charged. He ran straight past us, easily covering twenty meters.

"A straight charge attack… Himeko! Watch for when he jumps backward! It means he's gonna charge!"

"Got it!"

We were extremely careful. I parried his attacks and Himeko followed up with a skill. We watched Death Spots's attack patterns closely, but nothing new showed up besides his five-part combo and charge attack. Finally, after another twenty minutes of fighting, Death Spots's HP ran out. His model glowed white and burst into countless, harmless, polygonal fragments.

"Finally…" Himeko said, dropping to the cave floor and leaning on her sword. "What's the drop? I'm too tired to check…"

"Five…" I mumbled.

"Huh? What'd you say?"

"Thousand…" I muttered.

"What? Speak up, Nanashi. I can't hear you."

"Five… _thousand_ Col!?"

"Ow!" Himeko covered her ears. "Jeez… You're louder than Death Spots. Wait… How much did you say it dropped?"

"Five thousand! It dropped five thousand Col! A loaf of black bread only costs one Col… With this much, you could feed half of Legacy's population for a day! I mean, they wouldn't exactly be eating like kings, but they wouldn't go hungry."

"And that's not even counting what it dropped for me! Let me see…" Himeko heaved herself off the ground with a "hup" and checked her drop list. "Same for me! Five thousand! That's ten thousand between the two of us. Also…what's this thing?"

"Hm?" I looked at Himeko, but of course all I could see her pointing at was the empty space in front of her.

"It looks like Death Spots's sword, but I can't equip it."

"Really? Can I see?"

"Sure." Himeko made her window visible as I walked behind her to look over her shoulder.

"It's called 'Death Sword.' That's…original. It's a miscellaneous item, not a weapon. Strange. Oh! I see now."

"What?"

"It seems like you have to get it modified by a player blacksmith before you can use it. Only thing is, there aren't really any of those around yet, and I doubt any of them would have a high enough skill level to pull this off…"

"So I should just sell it, right?"

"Nah, hold onto it for a while. Maybe someday you'll be able to use it."

"Maybe. I bet it'll have really high stats!"

"Yeah, probably. At any rate, we made a lot of money off of Death Spots, but it's not quite enough to feed everyone in Tent City for any real length of time. I'm gonna hang around until he respawns and beat him a few more times. Can I count on your help?"

"You betcha. Now that we know what to expect, we can beat him easy."

And so, Himeko and I spent the rest of the night fighting Death Spots. Over and over and over and over again. Himeko got more comfortable defending with skills, so we went through fewer potions, but I was still the main defender during Death Spots's second phase, just to be safe. His five part combo was easy enough to defend with repetition, and the charge attack was predictable, so we had no trouble beating him. It was tedious…extremely tedious, but not difficult.

"Phew," I huffed, dropping myself on the cave floor beside Himeko. "How many times was that?"

"Dunno… Lost count…" Himeko was panting, but she was otherwise fine.

"We've got plenty of money now. I think we can call it a night."

"Finally… I'm beat."

I pushed myself up off the ground and extended my hand to Himeko. She grabbed it and I helped her stand, and we made our way back outside the cave.

"I can't wait to tell that old man that we beat Death Spots," Himeko said as her tent unrolled itself.

"Oh, right. That." I closed the little popup menu on my tent and it unrolled, pitching and staking itself to the ground. "I totally forgot about him."

"Of course you did. All you care about is the rewards, huh?"

"It's not like I'm out here for myself. We came to get money to feed the people—real people—back in the city. Their needs come before that NPC's."

"Yeah, that's true. But still, I'd feel bad if we never showed up to tell him we avenged all his friends."

"No worries, the Old Miner's cottage is on the way back. Besides…now that you mention rewards, I'm wondering what he'll give us in return for beating his arch nemesis."

Himeko chuckled. "Of course you're worried about that. Anyway, I'm going to sleep. Good night, Nanashi." She pulled back the flap on her tent and vanished inside.

"Good night," I said, crawling into my own tent. I opened my menu and unequipped my sword, gloves, chestpiece, belt, and boots, then closed my eyes and fell asleep almost immediately.

. . .

"Y'all actually went 'n' did it!"

At first, the Old Miner didn't believe that we'd defeated Death Spots. But once we showed him the sword that Himeko had gotten from completing the quest, his mood changed. Actually, it may be more accurate to say his entire personality changed.

"I can't believe you youngins went 'n' beat ol' Death Spots! Color me impressed!"

"It was nothing," Himeko chirped. "That mangy old fleabag was just a big push over."

Despite my moment of terror after Death Spots's first five-hit combo, I couldn't help but agree. Once we'd figured out his attack patterns, Death Spots was fairly easy to deal with.

"I can't thank ya enough, kiddos. I don't have much, but here—take this. I reckon it'll do ya more good than it will me."

A notification appeared in front of me and I clicked it. It read "Quest Cleared!" and listed the Col and EXP rewards for finishing the quest. The Col reward was one thousand, and the EXP was minimal. I could see why the Assault Team had skipped over this quest.

"That ain't nearly enough to thank ya fer givin' me some peace o' mind, so I'll tell y'all what. Listen here, an' I'll tell ya everything I know 'bout the Kobold Lord."

"That's alright," I said, already reaching for the door. "We're just glad to help." The Old Miner didn't listen to me, of course. He wasn't programmed to answer to that kind of response, so he just start droning about some massive, red kobold with a big axe or something.

"Nanashi!" Himeko squealed. "That's so rude! You can't just leave while he's talking!"

"Sorry, but we really need to get this cash back to Hiro."

"Alright…fine. Let's go. He probably won't notice, anyway."

In all likelihood, she was right. The old man was still babbling despite our argument, paying us no mind.

Himeko and I left the Old Miner's cottage and made our way through the forest. Between the two of us, we were able to handle the Nepenthes and Dire Wolves that popped out with no trouble at all. I'm pretty sure we didn't lose a single hitpoint between us on the return trip, and I allowed myself to believe I was starting to get good at this game.

I sent a message to Hiro as we travelled, so by the time we got into town he was waiting for us by the fountain at the center of Tent City. "Hello," he said, smiling ear to ear. "Nanashi, I'm beyond relieved that you made it back safely. And who is this?" He said, looking down at my companion.

"This is Himeko," I said. "She came along to help with the mission. In fact, if it wasn't for her, I think I might have died before I ever made it to the spotted kobold."

"Is that so? Well, then you have my thanks, too, Himeko."

Himeko puffed out her tiny chest and beamed. "No sweat! I'm glad I could help."

I opened my menu and sent a trade request to Hiro. "Here's everything I made off farming the Named Monster," I said, moving one hundred thousand Col into the trade window. "It's not much, but it should keep everyone fed for a few days."

"No!" Hiro blurted, his eyes bulging. "This is plenty! I can't believe you managed to make this much!"

"And that's not even counting my share," Himeko sang. "Whatever amount you see there, go ahead and double it."

"But how did you manage to get all of this? Surely the spotted kobold didn't drop all of it."

"Well," I said, scratching the back of my head. "Not all at once. The first time we killed him he dropped five thousand, but each time after that he only dropped one thousand. I'm not sure how many times we fought him to get that much… I just know that the sun was starting to come up when we left the cave.

"You put yourselves through a lot for our sake," Hiro whispered. "Again, thank you. Both of you."

"That's not all," I said. "I've got some info on the spotted kobold and the surrounding area. If you put together a small group of volunteers, you can make a routine of fighting it and feed the whole city that way."

"Seriously…?" Hiro's eyes widened. "You'd just tell me? Couldn't you profit off of that information if you brought it to an info broker?"

"Maybe, but you guys need it more than I need cash."

Hiro thanked me once, sometimes twice, after every single sentence as I filled him in on the details regarding the ruins, the kobold, Death Spots, and all of his attack patterns. Then, just for good measure, he thanked me another three times when I'd finished.

"By the way, Nanashi," Hiro said over his shoulder as he turned away from me. "Someone was looking for you. Said to meet them at the inn as soon as you got back to town."

"Oh? Who was it?"

"They didn't give their name, but they said you knew them. Just be careful, OK?"

"I will. Thanks."

"No, thank you."

"Alright, already! You're embarrassing me with all the 'thank yous'…"

Hiro laughed and waved over his shoulder, no doubt heading off to spread the good news.

When I turned to Himeko she was staring up at me, smiling.

"Wh-why're you looking at me like that…?"

"I can't believe you gave him _all_ the money you made from Death Spots. You didn't keep any of it for yourself. Not even the measly one thousand from the old guy!"

"Well…yeah. But it's no big deal. I mean, you did the same thing, right?"

"Yeah, but I don't usually go out on quests and stuff. I just hang around Tent City like all the others… Not like you, though. You actually do things, go on quests, get new gear. You could use the money. 'Cause you're gonna join the Assault Team, right?"

"Whoa! When did I ever say anything like that!?"

Himeko giggled. "I can just tell. Anyway… I guess this is goodbye for now. You've got some kind of meeting, and I'm gonna go see if there's anything else I can do to help out."

"That's pretty cool of you. I wish I could be responsible like you," I said, smiling.

"It's no big deal…" Himeko blushed and kicked at the dirt by her foot, then she looked up at me again. "Hey!" she cried. "I know! Let's be friends! That way we can message each other and stuff."

"Sure thing. Message me if you get yourself into trouble and I'll come running. I owe you, after all."

"You don't owe me," she said, opening her menu. I got the friend request a second later and accepted it. "If anything, I owe you… You showed me what it's like to help myself instead of sitting around waiting for help. Even better, we helped others together! So thank you, Nanashi."

"Ugh," I groaned. "If I hear 'thank you' one more time, I think I might explode."

Himeko laughed. "Still, thanks… You're my hero."

I didn't have a response to that, so Himeko smiled and waved, disappearing into a crowd of people while I stood there, my cheeks hot, feeling both pride and guilt. Of course I was happy she said that, but even after hearing those words for a second time I still couldn't feel like I deserved them. I thought maybe I should have said something like "no, you're mine," since I meant it when I said I would have died if not for her, but she was already gone. But that was probably for the best, because it would have been a bit corny and more than a little awkward if I told a twelve-year-old girl she was my hero in the middle of a crowded town square.

As I made my way west toward the inn I noticed that people were staring in my direction, and it occured to me that I was still wearing my Coat of Midnight and Annealed Blade which would have made me look like part of the Assault Team, or, rather, someone who did anything other than sit at the inn and mope all day. I didn't think it was right to go parading around as something I wasn't so I opened my menu and stuffed my coat, armor, gloves, and sword back into my inventory before I reached the inn.

When I got inside I looked around the tavern, but I didn't see anyone that might've been the person Hiro mentioned. I ordered a water and sat down at a table in the corner to wait for them to show, and just a couple seconds later, a familiar, hooded figure with a familiar, nasally voice plopped down in the chair across from me.

"Ya sure it was OK ta give away all that info fer free, kiddo? I woulda given ya a good price for it."

"I'm sure. Like I said, they needed it more."

"Nyaha, ya did say that, didn'tcha?"

"Mhm. I take it you're the person Hiro was talking about? The one who wanted to meet with me?"

"My, my. When did you become such an astute detective?" Nezumi's whiskered smirk was all I could see beneath her cloak's hood.

"What is it that you want? Another quest? You can count me out."

"Not exactly, kiddo." Nezumi reached across the table and snatched the cup of water I'd left unguarded, then took a few chugs. "Thing is," she said after wiping her mouth with the back of her sleeve. "We found the Area Boss."

. . .


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4

"Seriously…?" I noticed my jaw hanging open as I stared at the small, cloaked girl sitting across from me sitting across from me. I clamped it shut and continued. "Are you sure it's the Area Boss? How can you tell?"

"Well, we couldn't be totally sure," Nezumi said, cracking a smile. "But its name had the word 'boss' written in front of it. When we saw that, we figured there was a solid chance it was the boss."

I rolled my eyes and picked up my glass of water, but when I remembered that Nezumi had just drunk from it a second ago I placed it back down and hoped my avatar wasn't simulating embarrassment with a blush effect. "So, the Assault Team finally found the Area Boss… If they beat it, that will unlock the next area, right?"

"Bingo. And then we'll be one step closer ta endin' this nightmare."

"That's great. But that doesn't explain why you wanted to meet me here. So…?"

"Isn't it obvious, kiddo?"

"Obvious…?" I looked at Nezumi, who stared back, unblinking, with a careless, whiskered smirk, until it finally dawned on me. "Oh, no. Nope. No way. Not a chance. Forget it."

"I figured you'd say that," Nezumi said, shrugging. "But we need you, Nanashi."

"Need me? Me specifically? Why?"

"Well, not you, specifically. Don't get _too_ full o' yerself."

I growled and waited for her to continue.

"Lemme ask ya somethin', kiddo. Do you know how many players make up a full raid party?"

"Not a clue."

"Then I'll fill ya in. A raid party is made up of eight full parties. Regular parties can have up ta six players in 'em. That's forty eight people in total. Out of a potential forty eight people, do ya know how many we managed ta gather for the boss battle?"

"How many?" I asked flatly.

"Twelve, including me."

"…Seriously?"

"It's bad, Nanashi. At this point we're not askin' for seasoned warriors. We need all the help we can get."

"But at that rate…even if I were to join, what difference would it make? That's barely more than a third of a full raid party."

"That's true, but our levels are all way higher than they need ta be for this area. I'm pretty sure we can pull this off as is. Even so, just one more fighter could be the difference between a win and a loss."

"Even though you say that…" I clenched my fist and stared down at the wooden tabletop. The textures looked so realistic now that I actually took the time to examine them. I found myself wondering if I could actually identify the type of tree it was made from if I were some sort of tabletop connoisseur. I spent a few more moments pondering about whether or not there was such a thing as a tabletop connoisseur. When I'd decided there probably wasn't, finishing the thought with a hopeful "but you never know," I realized that Nezumi wasn't going to leave until I gave her a straight answer. She had been sitting there, waiting patiently for me to finish my sentence, not budging a centimeter. "I'm sorry, Nezumi. But there's no way I could do it."

"Just…think about it, OK? I'll be in town fer a few days. Let me know if ya change yer—"

"Trust me, I won't."

Now it was Nezumi's turn to avoid eye contact. She turned away from me and looked down at the floor. Her brown hood and long, curly bangs cast a shadow over her eyes, making it hard to read her expression. She was quiet for a full minute before standing up and shoving the table away. Her chair scraped across the floor in punctuation.

"OK," she muttered. "In that case, goodbye, Nanashi. Y'know, in case this winds up bein' the last time I ever see you."

My gaze dropped to the floor. I couldn't bring myself to say anything to her. She spun on her heel, her cloak nearly slapping me in the face, and left the inn without another word, letting the doors slam against the wall as she vanished into the sunlight.

I felt the shame solidify in my chest and rise until I was practically choking on it. _That was a dirty move,_ I whined to myself. She was right—there was a chance she would die if she went to fight the Area Boss. It was scary to think about, but it didn't change anything. What good could I do if I joined them? I'd just be getting in the way.

 _It's better if I stay behind,_ I told myself. _Better for everyone…_

It was a little early in the day to sleep, but I was still exhausted from hunting Death Spots all last night. Plus, I didn't really feel like doing anything else today. I stood up and slinked over to the staircase, glancing one last time at the half-empty glass of water on the table before dragging myself to the second floor. I pushed through the canvas flap to my room and dropped myself on the bed. My eyes were only closed for a second or two before I lost consciousness.

. . .

"Of all the unnecessary features for an MMO to have…" I groaned as grumbling sound effects blared from my stomach. The actual sensation of hunger wasn't really all that bad—easy enough to ignore and even sleep through, especially since I knew it was only virtual and my _real_ body was being taken care of in a hospital. It was the sound that I couldn't ignore. Why did it have to be so loud?

It was about one o'clock when I slithered out from under the covers and sauntered downstairs. I figured if I _had_ to be awake, I might as well get myself some virtual Vitamin D, too, and headed outside. I made my way toward the center of town and sat on a bench near the fountain, then opened my inventory and produced a roll of black bread and the tiny jar of cream Nezumi had given me less than a week ago. It felt like a lot had happened since then. Compared to my usual routine, a lot _had_ happened.

I smothered the roll until it was completely covered and was stuffing the whole thing into my mouth when a familiar voice sounded over my shoulder.

"Nanashi!"

"Bleghugh!?" I coughed, sputtering bits of bread onto the ground. The crumbs bounced once before losing all of their color and exploding into polygonal shards.

"Oops… Sorry!" Himeko hopped over the back of the bench and plopped down beside me. "What're you doing?"

"Oh, nothing…" I said, staring down in mourning at the place where half of my meager meal had met its untimely demise.

"Isn't it a little late for lunch?" Himeko asked, tilting her head. "Did you just get out of bed? Lazy bum!"

"Give me a break. I'm still tired from our Death Spots adventure. Besides, what have _you_ been up to all day?"

"I've been grinding for EXP out in the fields where the kobolds live, but I'm taking a break right now."

"Grinding, huh?" I said, taking a bite out of my roll. "Trying to level up for another battle with Death Spots?"

"Nope. Guess again."

"Uhm… You want to be a really high level so you can show off?"

"No." Himeko elbowed me in the side. "One more try."

"I got nothin'. Sorry."

"Really? You mean she hasn't talked to you yet?"

"'She'? Who are you talking about?"

"There's an info broker in town rounding up people to fight the Area Boss. You really didn't know? I thought you'd be the first person she asked."

"Well, I—"

"Anyway, that's why I've been practicing like crazy all day. I'm pretty strong—but you already know that. Still, I want to get even stronger while I have the time. Can't be too careful, right? Nanashi, you have to find the info broker and tell her you're joining the fight! We really need your help. What was her name again? Megumi? No… Negi? Nope. That's just weird… What was it…?"

"Nezumi."

"Yeah, that's it! Wait—so you _do_ know her?"

"Yeah… I know her."

"Great!" Himeko clapped her hands and smiled ear to ear. "Now all you have to do is message her! So hurry up and do it, already."

"Right. The thing is…" I started picking my bread apart and tossing the pieces onto the ground, watching them explode in silence for a few moments. Then, I let the roll rest in my lap, staring down at it.

"The thing is what?" Himeko asked, jabbing my shoulder with her tiny finger.

I drew in a sharp breath and squeezed my eyes shut. "I'm not going."

"Huh?" Himeko stared up at me in disbelief, her eyes wide and head tilted, like she wasn't certain she'd heard me correctly. Then, she let her head hang. "Oh…" A moment passed and she looked up at me again, smiling. "Don't worry, I get it," she said, her voice so sweet and understanding it made me sick to my stomach. "Fighting regular monsters is one thing, but Area Bosses are probably pretty scary, right?"

"Right…" I balled my hands into fists and twisted in my seat, turning my whole body away from her. I couldn't even bring myself to look in her cardinal direction, much less look her in the face.

"Don't worry about it, Nanashi." Himeko stood up, patting my shoulder. "Leave this one to us, OK?"

"Yeah… OK."

Himeko walked off, probably heading back to the field for more training. As soon as she was out of sight, I let my roll of cream-covered black bread fall to the ground and watched it shatter. I clenched my fists so tightly my whole body began to tremble.

 _What's your excuse this time?_ a voice screamed in my head. I had no excuse. There was no way to justify sitting on the sidelines while a little girl, twelve years old at best, went to fight the battle that I couldn't. Even so, there was just no way…

I picked myself up off the bench and went for a walk around Tent City, trying to take my mind off of it—off of everything, really. I browsed the shops, looking at different pieces of armor and weapons. They were pretty pricey. If I hadn't given away just about all of my Col to Hiro I could've bought whatever I wanted. Not that I needed any of it, though. All of these items were monster drops, and none of their stats compared to my Annealed Blade or Coat of Midnight—neither of which I deserved. I felt another pang of guilt as I tore myself away from the vendors. I knew my gear would be better off in someone else's hands.

I spent hours roaming around town, looking at every shop and food stall to see if they were selling anything other than bread. They weren't, of course.

After I finished perusing the food stalls I went to Fort Reclamation, the castle-like building at the north end of Tent City, and hung around until I'd memorized all of the guards' dialogue. They said things like "did you know this building is made entirely of cedar?" and "I wish more interesting things would happen around here," and, most importantly, "no lollygagging."

I went back to the inn, marched up to my room, and fell onto my bed, but I couldn't sleep. Not for a lack of trying, though. I tossed and turned for hours, begging my brain to turn off, but it wouldn't. All I could see when I closed my eyes was Nezumi and Himeko standing beneath some giant monster. The thing would lift its enormous weapon—sometimes it was a sword, sometimes an axe, other times it just used its claws—and it would swing it down, hitting both of the girls in just one blow. They screamed, but the sound was cut off abruptly when the monster's weapon hit them and their bodies shattered like glass sculptures. Finally, I drifted off to sleep. But I was woken up what felt like just a minute later by a nightmare with the same content as my waking thoughts.

I pushed the covers off and sat up. My avatar was sweating all over and my hands were trembling as if the system wanted me to be sure I'd had a nightmare. I pushed my hair out of my face and drew in a long, unsteady breath, held it in for a few moments, and let it out shakily. I sat there in silence for just a minute, according to the clock in the upper right corner of my vision, but it felt like an eternity. Then, finally, I opened my menu and sent a message to Nezumi with just two words.

"I'm in."

. . .

 _This looks like the place._ Clad once again in my Coat of Midnight with my Annealed Blade hanging from my right shoulder, I found myself in the village ruins between the Old Miner's house and Death Spots's Cave.

"Before ya can go takin' on any bosses," Nezumi had said to me, "yer gonna need ta level up a bit more."

My level was eight now, which meant that all that time Himeko and I spent fighting Death Spots had only gotten me four levels.

"It doesn't sound like a lot," Nezumi told me. "But four levels in just one night is more than anyone else could manage. That's why I think ya should use that Deathspot fella or whatever his name is as yer main source fer grindin' EXP. But not yet…"

There was about a week between now and the boss raid. If I spent that whole week fighting Death Spots by myself, Nezumi assured me that I'd be more than strong enough to help in the battle against the first Area Boss. But I wasn't ready for that just yet. Before I could take on a Named Monster on my own, Nezumi suggested that I reach at least level ten first. And she'd suggested a way to get it done fast.

I found a building, mostly intact, that matched Nezumi's description. I peered through what was left of the door frame and spotted a brown chest at the back of the building's only room. I drew my Annealed Blade and entered the building, making my way toward the chest. I moved slowly, deliberately, counting each step.

"Any second, now…" I was halfway across the room and still nothing.

I got within arm's reach of the chest and reached out toward it.

"Ryaaagh!" The sound came from above me. I turned around and looked up to see the snarling, canid face of a Lesser Kobold, as well as seven of his friends.

"The chest is boobytrapped," Nezumi had told me. "Once ya cross a certain threshold in the room, a buncha kobold'll spawn."

It happened just as Nezumi had warned me, and it _still_ scared the crap out of me. I took a few hurried steps backward and tripped over the chest, falling flat on my rear. Looking into the kobolds' glowing red eyes it seemed as if they knew that I'd fallen. Could their programming have allowed them to know something like that? Either way, they dropped from the walls and dashed toward me. I rolled backward, kicking one of them in the jaw as I did, and sprang to my feet. I gritted my teeth and squeezed my sword's leather-wrapped grip.

The kobold that I'd kicked shook its head and rubbed its snout. It roared at me, and its eyes seemed to glow a little redder.

I smiled and snickered, pretending I wasn't afraid. Sure, the kick had actually been an accident—the lucky result of a spastic, panicked attempt to get away from the monster. But it didn't know that.

The Lesser Kobold leaped toward me, aiming for my head with its crude axe. I brushed the blow aside and kicked the little beast in the chest. The thing shook its head again and howled, and it started foaming at the mouth. It turned its head to either side and barked at its comrades. Then, all eight of them closed in on me at once—walking right into _my_ trap.

As soon as they were all in range, I used Horizontal, blasting them backward almost two meters. I screamed as I vaulted over the treasure chest and leaped, grunting as I drove the point of my sword into the chest of the kobold on the far left, watching its last sliver of HP vanish. I growled as I flung the blade over my head and slammed it into the gut of the kobold immediately to my right. Six were left. Two of them came toward me. I cut them down in turn, then swung to my right to deflect a blow from another. I swung my Annealed blade in a broad arc from right to left, killing that one and the next that had been winding up for an attack. I blocked an overhead swing from another and pushed his axe away, then drove my sword into its belly. It exploded, and the last kobold glared at me through the cloud of polygonal shards that had once been its friend. It howled, enraged, and leaped into the air, somersaulting. It aimed straight for the crown of my skull. I queued up Slant and leaped into the air, splitting its gut diagonally from hip to shoulder. Red particles spewed from the wound and flew through the air. As I landed on my feet on the far side of the room I heard the sound of the kobold's body falling in a heap somewhere behind me before bursting into a million pieces.

I returned my Annealed Blade to its scabbard on my back. Then, my knees buckled and I doubled over, panting. It felt like I hadn't been breathing during the entire fight as I gasped for air, sweat trickling down my cheek.

Finally, I steadied myself and stood up. "Great," I groaned. "Eight hundred more rounds of that and I should make it to level ten."

I strode over to the chest at the back of the room and tapped the lock. It swung open and a window appeared before me reading "100 Col."

"Figures…" All of that had been for a measly one hundred Col? It seemed unfair at first, but when I thought about it it made sense. It was still early in the game, and even though I had to face eight of them, those kobolds' levels were probably around six or seven. Killing eight low-level mobs wasn't really worth a huge reward. Not in Legacy, or any other RPG for that matter. But still, I couldn't help but be frustrated. In a normal RPG, my life wasn't on the line. The reward in this case didn't feel like it was worth the risk. But it didn't matter. The chest wasn't why I was here.

Normally, if you kill a mob it takes a while for it to respawn. In Legacy, the spawn rate could be anywhere from five minutes to an hour depending on the circumstances. The kobold in the ruined village took a long time to respawn, which was probably to balance the area's difficulty as well as prevent players from grinding too much EXP at any given time and raising their levels too quickly. This spot was a special case, though.

I left the ruined building, but as soon as I was outside I turned on my heel and stepped back through the doorway. The chest at the back of the room was cracked open, indicating that its contents hadn't reset. Its brown color told me that its contents would never reset for me. However…

As soon as I was within reach of the chest, a growl from above me signalled the arrival of eight more kobold.

"So Nezumi's info was right," I noted, drawing my sword. The chest, once opened, would never refresh its contents. Once you'd gotten the one hundred Col it offered, that was it. But the kobold that guarded the chest were set to spawn every time you got near it, which meant I could farm them for EXP for as long as I liked. And I did just that for the next six hours.

For the first four hours each runthrough went about as well as the first. I triggered the trap, and even though I was expecting them, the kobold freaked me out every time. I waited for all eight of them to get within reach and uttered a silent "thank you" to the powers that be each time I pulled it off without taking damage. When they were in range, I hit them with Horizontal, leaving just a sliver of their HP left, then finished them off as quickly as I could.

By then, my One-handed skill had gone up a bit. It was sitting at about sixty eight, and because of that, I was able to deal just enough damage to kill all eight kobold with one attack if I timed it right. And that's when it started to get fun.

When I first arrived at the building that Nezumi told me about, the one that had a trap which summoned eight kobold all at once and could be triggered an infinite number of times, I was timid. I peaked my head in first, then tiptoed to the trigger spot, and fought desperately. Now I walked in like I owned the place, strutting across the room with my Annealed Blade resting across my shoulders. When the kobold snarled and growled and dropped down from the walls I turned around lazily before readying my sword. I even yawned once.

I killed them over and over again, baiting them close with a taunting gesture and then smiling gleefully as my glowing blue blade cut through each one of them in turn and they exploded, one after another. After a while I thought I could see something different in their glowing red eyes. It looked like resentment, but it was probably just my imagination. I found myself wondering if the system made a new set of kobold with slightly different parameters each time I beat them or if it was endlessly recycling the same bits of code. I wondered if they could remember me. If they remembered each defeat they suffered at my hands. I hoped they could.

For the first time since I'd logged into this game I felt good. I felt like a player instead of a prisoner. I forgot that I was doing this because I had to and just enjoyed making these kobold feel my wrath, as if through killing them I could tell this whole lousy game that it couldn't beat me anymore. That I'd become too strong. For a time, I allowed myself to feel powerful. To believe that maybe, just maybe, I really _could_ be a hero.

I farmed the kobold like that for about two hours before breaking for dinner—if you want to call bread and cream dinner—then went back to it for another few hours before setting up my tent. I lay down, folded my hands beneath my head, and smiled as I stared up at the canvas roof. I opened my menu to check my progress. I hadn't even reached level nine yet, but I was close. Another day or two like this and I'd be level ten.

The next morning I ate another roll of black bread and got back to grinding. A few hours and I broke for lunch, then got back to it. Later, dinner, then back to farming the kobold for a few hours before bed. Rinse and repeat. I went through this process over and over for three days, and by the time I was done I had run out of the cream Nezumi gave me. But I'd reached level ten, and it was time to move on.

I packed up my tent and moved it to my inventory, then set off for Death Spots's cave. Getting through the ruins was easy this time. Whenever a large group of kobold surrounded me I smote them with Horizontal. Individuals that felt brave would jump at me and I'd swat them away with my Annealed Blade. By the time they managed to group up again Horizontal's cooldown was already up. I walked with my back straight and didn't stop at all on my way to the cave. I didn't have to. The kobold were just inconveniences now. They posed no threat at all. Again, I felt powerful. Invincible, even.

Then, I stepped into the black, gaping abyss that was the mouth of Death Spots's cave and all of those good feelings disappeared as quickly and thoroughly as the light did.

I started breathing a little faster. It felt like there was less oxygen in here than last time, but that couldn't be possible. The cave was virtual. The only oxygen I needed was the stuff my body was sucking down back in the real world. Nonetheless, it was getting harder to breathe. It felt colder, too.

"…What the hell am I doing!?"

I slumped against the cave wall and dropped to the ground. I crossed my arms over my chest and held myself as though that might keep my heart from beating out of my ribcage. The last time I was here, Himeko told me that my laid-back attitude had helped her relax. But was I only able to act that way because I had someone there with me?

"You're pathetic…" I told myself since no one else was here to say it. "You…a hero?" I couldn't believe that I'd allowed myself to think I was anything more than a worthless coward. I had only been brave enough to face this place the first time because I'd had a twelve-year-old girl here to protect me. I laughed at that last part, but despite the jovial sound I could feel something hot in the corners of my eyes threatening to spill over. I buried my face in my knees and held my breath until the feeling passed, then, I pushed myself up off the cave floor and turned toward the exit. I was stupid to think that I could have done this in the first place.

 _Just one more step,_ I told myself. _One step into the light where it's safe._ But…

My feet wouldn't move.

I stood there in silence for a long while, my eyes closed, just listening to the sound of my own breathing. Eventually, the short, strained breaths stabilized. I clenched my fists and opened my eyes again.

"No," I told myself, or, rather, that version of me that was afraid. The me who wanted to go home and hide under the covers. The voice inside that told me I couldn't do it. "I _can_ do this."

Even if it was just me, why shouldn't I be able to do this? I'd already fought this NM countless times. I knew its attack patterns like the back of my hand, and I was stronger than I was the last time I was here.

I swiped my hand in the air to call up the menu and flipped through my inventory. Plenty of potions. I navigated to the status page. My gear was in good shape. Then, I clicked on the skills page.

"Oh?"

My One-handed skill had gone up a bit more and was sitting right between eighty two and eighty three. And when I looked up at the top right corner of the window I noticed I'd acquired a few more skill points—enough to unlock a new Sword Skill.

I pressed a few buttons and closed my menu, then set off down the long, dark, winding corridor. At many points along the way I wanted to turn back. But I thought of Nezumi and Himeko going up against the Area Boss alone. I remembered my nightmares. I remembered why I was here, and I pushed myself to keep going. When I reached the end of the corridor and stood at the entrance to Death Spots's room I drew in a long breath and held it for a while. Then, I released it and summoned every ounce of courage I had and marched into the room.

I stopped about ten meters away from the giant kobold. "Hey!" I screamed. Death Spots was already rising to his feet. His cursor, which had once been a dark red, was faded, looking almost pink now. The monster roared and sound wave effects blurred my vision. I stayed where I was and drew my Annealed Blade from its scabbard.

As Death Spots charged I pulled my blade back by my right shoulder and waited. As soon as he started his swing I let the Sword Skill loose and flew past him with Rage Spike, cutting his right flank as I passed him. We were both stuck in a post-motion delay, but I got out of mine just a little bit faster and hit his other side with Horizontal.

Death Spots's sword glowed and he used a single-hit downward vertical Sword Skill. I stepped to the side and used Slant, and the force sent him reeling back.

I noticed that, even though I was the only one fighting, I'd taken out a good bit of his first HP bar already. I smiled as I readied myself for Death Spots's next attack, wondering what I had been so worried about before.

The spotted kobold swung diagonally downward. I cancelled the action with Horizontal and the two of us were frozen for a second.

"Tch…"

With me stuck in the post-motion delay after cancelling Death Spots's skill and no one backing me up there was no way to capitalize on the opening.

I dodged a few of Death Spots's attacks, throwing in a few swings here and there when I got the opportunity, but I couldn't find any openings to use Sword Skills. It was too risky. When I did use them it was only to cancel one from Death Spots.

Since I was restricted to regular attacks, the fight seemed to be dragging on. Nonetheless, Death Spots's first HP bar was drained after about twenty minutes. The last time I fought this thing it took that same amount of time to get this far with two people. It was cold, hard proof that I had gotten stronger, and it made me happy. But this next part was where it was going to get tricky.

With his first HP bar gone and his second one having turned yellow Death Spots howled and his eyes glowed red, signalling the second phase of the battle. The kobold bared its fangs and growled. I recognized this as the start of his five-hit combo. There was no way I could afford to let that combo land, so I cancelled the first hit with Horizontal. The recoil left us both frozen for a moment, and we recovered at the same time. Death Spots started attacking again as soon as he was free, leaving me no time to land any hits of my own.

I dodged him for a while, backing up out of his reach and looking for openings, but none came. He started his five-part Sword Skill again and I cancelled it with Horizontal. Then, we were back at it. It went like this for a full fifteen minutes, and I never managed to land a single hit. His attacks were relentless, barely giving me room to breathe, much less counterattack. I knew it couldn't continue like this. I had to find a way to deal some damage or this whole thing would be pointless.

"Maybe I could…"

I didn't have time to form the whole idea in my head before Death Spots started his combo again. I wasn't thinking straight. I couldn't have, because it all happened so fast. This time, instead of cancelling his first diagonal hit with Horizontal, I stepped to the left and ducked my head under his sword, dodging the first swing. I thought I had time to get in a hit before his next attack came. I thought wrong.

The last time Death Spots hit me with this combo I had been fast enough to get my guard up, but I wasn't so lucky this time. Death Spots swiped at my right side with his claws and scratched out nearly a quarter of my HP. The next swing was a horizontal sweep with his sword, and it took out a full third of my HP. Another swipe from his claws took another quarter and sent me flying backward nearly three meters. I hit the ground hard and sprawled out on the cave floor. I heard my Annealed Blade clatter to the ground somewhere behind Death Spots. The huge, spotted kobold closed the distance between us with his sword raised high above his head. I looked at the pathetic sliver of red in the top left corner of my vision that represented my life force in this world.

"NO!" I screamed, and I shrivelled up, covering my head with my hands.

I waited for a few seconds. I didn't feel Death Spots's sword make contact. _Am I dead already and I didn't feel it?_ I wondered. I opened my left eye just a crack. Nope. Still alive. My HP bar was still there, blinking desperately.

I moved my arm away from my face and peered up at Death Spots. The kobold was staring straight ahead as if I wasn't there. Its glowing red eyes had returned to normal—as had its HP bar. Death Spots turned around and went back to the center of the room, curled up into a ball, and started to snore.

"What…?" I said, incredulous.

I waited several minutes to be sure Death Spots wasn't coming back to finish the job before pushing myself up to a sitting position and pulling a health potion out of my belt pouch.

"What the hell happened?" I asked myself again as I sipped, my hands shaking and spilling some of the potion into my lap. The liquid caused a stain texture to appear on my pant leg, but it vanished just a second later.

I noticed that the space around me had become cramped. I could swear the chamber was bigger than this… Then, once my senses had fully returned, I realized I wasn't in the chamber anymore. The fourth hit in Death Spots's combo, the one that nearly took the last of my HP, sent me flying so far that I'd rolled into the corridor leading to the boss room. Death Spots's programming must prevent him from leaving the room, so when he reached the edge his status reset and he went back to his idle state as though nothing had happened. In other words, I wasted almost forty minutes and nearly died for nothing.

I finished the potion and tossed the bottle aside, then let myself fall onto my back and stared at the cavern ceiling. For the umpteenth time that day I considered throwing in the towel and heading home. But I knew I couldn't do that. If I didn't participate in the first Area Boss raid, then there was a chance that Nezumi and Himeko would die. If I died here, that could still happen. But if their deaths were going to be my fault one way or the other, then I knew I'd rather die trying to make a difference then sit back and let it happen. Even so, I couldn't think of any way to beat this thing on my own. I wondered if I could go back to Tent City and find some help, but that was out. Everyone was either levelling up on their own or doing what I really wanted to be doing right now: hiding in their rooms. I sat thinking for a long time, but each train of thought stopped at the same station. I was on my own.

"In that case," I said, pushing myself up off the ground. "All I can do is try."

It would be fine, I told myself. As long as I didn't do anything stupid like that last time I could, at the very least, fight this thing without dying. I could get through the first phase no problem, then defend through the second phase, looking for weaknesses, and bail if things looked bad.

I walked into Death Spots's chamber and picked up my sword, then approached the kobold. "Well," I said as it stood up and brandished its weapon. "I'm not afraid of you anymore. What now?"

Death Spots roared in response and the fight was back on. It started the same way it always did. I hit the creature with Rage Spike, flying past him as he charged, and then the battle went on as normal.

I spent the next few hours grinding through his first phase, waiting and watching during the second, and leaving the chamber when I felt overwhelmed. Over and over and over we fought, going through the same motions again and again.

I broke for lunch, sitting at the end of the corridor and glaring resentfully at the mangy bastard, snoring so peacefully at the center of his chamber. I thought hard as I chewed the crummy black bread. But no matter what I just couldn't figure it out. There was no way I could move fast enough to hit him with a skill after he finished his—

"!" I choked on my bread as something finally dawned on me. How could I have been so stupid? The solution was so simple that I had already tried it once. In fact, I've been doing it the whole time.

I wrapped the rest of my bread in the paper it came in and stuffed it into my inventory, then jumped to my feet and ran into the chamber, still chewing my last bite.

As Death Spots stood up, roared, pointed his weapon at me, charged, yadda yadda, I went through my usual routine, too, shooting past his initial downward swing with Rage Spike and turning to hit him in the back with Horizontal. The only two big hits I was able to land on him so far during his first phase while fighting solo.

I watched the spotted kobold carefully until he held his sword above him in a familiar stance. Normally, this was the attack that I'd cancel with Slant, but this time would be a little different. This time I took a step toward Death Spots while activating Slant. As his blade travelled downward I leaped up and to my right, slashing underneath his arm while his sword passed harmlessly just over my head.

Death Spots screamed. His snout scrunched up and he winced, and his HP loss was way higher than I expected. On a human body, there's a pressure point just beneath the arm. I wondered if hitting that point awarded me a critical hit or something, but I didn't have time to dwell on it.

Death Spots recovered quickly. He swung at me once from my left to my right. I knew the next swing was coming from the other side, so I used Rage Spike to blow past him, clearing his attack and landing a hit to his flank in the process.

As I turned to face him again I allowed a smirk to cross my lips. I couldn't believe I'd overlooked such an obvious solution. If I didn't have time to hit him _after_ his attack was over, I just had to attack at the _same time._

The brutish kobold swung at me again and I circled around him, following the trajectory of his blade, and hit him with Horizontal. I kept this up, carefully timing my Sword Skills while repositioning myself just outside his reach, and just like that the first of Death Spots's two HP bars was gone.

 _Here comes the hard part,_ I said to myself as I lowered my stance. Death Spots howled and levelled his burning red gaze at me. He started up his signature five-hit combo. I knew it well enough by now, but I dodged it this time, stepping backward with each swing. Better safe than sorry.

 _There…then there…_ I noted.

I backed up further, dodging a few of his normal attacks as Death Spots thrashed harmlessly at the air in front of me. His combo was ready again and I kept backing up, watching closely.

 _Then there and then…there, and, finally…_

I moved back further and further, evading his attacks until I felt the cold stone of the cavern wall against my back. Death Spots started up his five-hit combination attack. He was about to use his strongest technique while I was standing with nowhere left to retreat…and I grinned like a madman.

First was a diagonal, downward swing from the left side. I ducked and stepped to my left, and the giant sword passed over my head. Next was a horizontal slash from his claws. The attack would come from my right. The thing was that Death Spots was a lot taller than I was, so I only had to bend forward a little bit to avoid the attack. So I did just that, bending low—and queuing up a Horizontal Sword Skill. As Death Spots's claws passed over my neck, my Annealed Blade found its mark, tearing into the kobold's waist. The monster winced in pain, and the blow seemed to slow him down a little. The next two attacks were a swing from his sword followed by a claw swipe, both horizontal, so I stayed low and let them pass harmlessly. Lastly was a huge, vertical, downward swing. As the sword came hurtling down toward me I rolled to the left. The giant blade crashed into the stone just centimeters away from me. From my kneeling position I activated Slant and leaped off the ground, this time aiming for Death Spots's head. And I found my mark, no problem, hitting the giant canid square in the jaw.

Death Spots stumbled backward, leaning on his sword and holding his head in his massive paw. It was another critical hit. His recoil bought me enough time to recover from my Sword Skill, and by the time he tried to attack I had already queued up Rage Spike. I shot under his arm, cut his flank, and flew well past him.

I turned nonchalantly to face Death Spots and he _definitely_ looked pissed. But I didn't care. I'd figured his game out, and I'd changed the rules. He made a mad dash across the room and tried his five-hit skill again. It was sooner than I expected, but my skills had already cooled down as well. I dodged each hit and responded in between with my own three-part combo, shooting past him at the end again with Rage Spike.

I had always heard that sword-fighting and martial arts in general had a lot in common with dancing. That didn't make sense to me until now. In this deadly waltz, Death Spots had been leading me up to this point. He'd nearly gotten the better of me so many times because I had been missing the steps. But now I knew the response to each one of his movements. I had seen his dance so many times before that I had committed it to memory, and in doing so had come up with my own dance to match its tempo. And, just like that, I found the rhythm of Sword Art: Legacy.

Death Spots could no longer keep up. The spotted kobold roared in defiance from the other side of the room. He still had a bit of HP left and he told me without words that he wasn't ready to give up. He leaped backward—an action that I recognized as the start of his charge attack.

I glared back at the monster and broke into a sprint, heading straight for him. "Come on!" I challenged him.

Death Spots began to charge, and as he got closer I slung my blade over my right shoulder. Even though my sword was behind me, I could still see the bright red glow of the Sword Skill in my peripheral vision. We were about two meters apart when Death Spots lashed out with his claws, but he missed me completely as I leaped high into the air. I flew over him and somersaulted, and I drove the edge of my blade deep into the top of that disgustingly-familiar canid skull with my new Sword Skill: Sonic Leap.

I landed softly, my Coat of Midnight flapping defiantly as it fell to my ankles, and turned to see if Death Spots had any more in him. He didn't. I thought I could sense the disbelief in the monster's form as Death Spots stood still for a few moments before a blinding white light consumed him and he burst into countless polygonal shards.

"Huh," I mused, looking at the Annealed Blade in my hands. Obviously, I'd never used that Sword Skill, Sonic Leap, before now. After all, I only unlocked it a few hours ago. Even so, it felt familiar somehow…

. . .

"A-ha!" Nezumi's nasally laugh echoed throughout the tavern portion of the inn back in Tent City. "I knew ya had it in ya, kiddo!"

"Would you keep it down?" I pleaded, lowering my head. "People are staring."

"And they should! I mean, we got ourselves a genuine, bona fide badass over here!"

"I should have let that thing kill me…"

"I mean really—I knew ya were gonna beat it. Wouldn'ta told ya ta farm it if I thought otherwise. But, man, I never figured you'd turn a Named Monster into your b—"

"Ahem!" I coughed loudly as every eye in the tavern turned in my direction. "It wasn't like that. You're exaggerating."

"Am I? But the way _you_ told the story, that mangy ol' mutt didn't stand a chance! Nya-haha!"

"I regret everything I told you. Please stop." My cheeks—no, my entire face was red at this point. Nezumi had been shouting non-stop for everyone at the inn to hear about the last four days I'd spent fighting Death Spots as though I'd just returned from some epic quest. The way she was telling it, I might as well have just killed a dragon. She made it sound like an incredible, unbelievable tale of heroism and valor. And, wouldn't you know, no one was buying it. There were some appraising looks, sure, and a few gasps of awe. But most of the people around me just gave me angry stares. I think I even heard someone say "what a showoff." Except _I_ hadn't said a word about it. Not to them, anyway. Not to anyone except…

"Yer just bein' modest," Nezumi cooed. "Hey, everyone—three cheers for the hero Nanashi!"

 _Not my name!_ I screamed in my head. _Why'd you go and give them that!?_

I swiped my hand downward, whacking it on the table in the process, opened a trade window, and punched Nezumi's name into the recipient box. "How much?" I asked.

"Pardon?" Nezumi sang, batting her eyelashes.

"How much is it gonna take to shut you up? I made a lot this past week, you know."

"Aha, so he can be taught." Nezumi leaned back in her chair and put her feet up on the table. "Tell ya what, kiddo. I'll do ya this solid on the house. On account of yer gallant heroics 'n' all. But let this be a lesson, y'hear? Don't go spoutin' precious info. Not ta anyone."

"Least of all to you…" I thought I said that in my head, but when I realized I'd said it out loud I looked up at Nezumi to make sure I hadn't offended her.

"Now yer gettin' it!" she said with a whiskered, ear-to-ear grin. Evidently, I had not offended her. She looked pleased—ecstatic, even—as though I'd just complimented her. "Now, down ta business. So, how'd ya do? How many levels did ya get outta the deal?"

"Nice try."

"Nya-ha!" Nezumi made a show of wiping a fake tear from the corner of her eye. "They grow up so fast… But, seriously. If ya don't wanna tell me, it's all good. Just know that if ya do, it's between us."

"…You sure?"

"Hey, now, kiddo," she said with a serious look in her eye. "All info's fair game. I'll sell anything. But I never lie. If I did I'd lose credibility with my clientele, y'know? So as long as there's an agreement made beforehand, yer secrets are safe with me. Ya dig?"

"Alright. I needed you to tell me if it was high enough, anyway."

I opened my menu and set it to be visible to others, then pushed it across the table for Nezumi to examine.

"Whoa…"

"'Whoa…?' 'Whoa' good or…?"

"Yeah, this'll do just fine, kiddo. Hmm…" Nezumi swiped her fingers upward, scrolling through my status page. "One-handed skill's comin' along nicely, too."

"Hey!" I set my window back to "private" and swatted it away. "Don't go looking through my stats!"

"Why not?" she asked innocently. "I don't see the harm, seein' as we're friends 'n' all."

"Even so, I'd rather you didn't do that without asking."

"Eh, fair enough. Ya got good instincts, kiddo. In this world, yer stats are yer life. It's like someone catalogued all yer strengths and weaknesses and put 'em in a nice little list. Anybody got their hands on that, they'd know just how ta kill ya."

All I could do was stare at Nezumi, jaw agape, eyes wide, completely dumbfounded.

"Anywho!" she said, stifling a yawn. "Ya did good, kiddo. Better go get some sleep. The raid's tomorrow."

"Yeah… Got it. You be sure to rest up, too, OK?"

"No arguments there." Nezumi waved as if to shoo me away. "Now get outta here. Get some rest. Yer gonna need it. I've got some last minute details ta sort out 'fore I hit the hay myself."

"Yeah, alright. Don't overdo it, OK?"

I left the table and headed upstairs to my room. I dropped myself on the bed, but I didn't bother closing my eyes. I opened my menu and started sifting through my items and skills. Not like I'd be able to get any sleep, anyway.

. . .


End file.
